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That isn't comparable in any way

I think the ESP8266 supports operating in SDIO mode, it's the descendant of a chip used to add wifi to low-end tablets. So it could be used as a literal replacement for an on-board WiFi module, if SDIO pins are available on the Orange Pi board.

Why not? Most people don't use rpi as a home desktop. These GPIOs are there for a reason and I think that's what people mostly care about unless they are making some magic mirror or other form of a display.

There is a lot more software for Linux boxes than there is for the NodeMCU, for example.

Furthermore, their processing power is orders of magnitude apart, as is RAM and storage. NodeMCU targets embedded, and there are plenty of cases where a rpi is used but a NodeMCU would be more than sufficient. But that doesn't mean that they're equivalent, there are also plenty of use cases where a NodeMCU is horribly underpowered.

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