Flight controllers

Flight Controller Guide: Betaflight vs INAV vs ArduPilot, F4 vs F7 vs H7

The flight controller is the drone’s brain: it reads the gyro a few thousand times a second and tells each motor what to do. Which board you need depends far more on the firmware you plan to run than on the processor letters — here is how to decide.

Published 24 September 2026 · by the Fioparts team, Gurugram

What a flight controller does

A flight controller (FC) is a small circuit board with a microcontroller and an inertial measurement unit — a gyroscope and accelerometer. Several thousand times a second it reads how the airframe is rotating, compares that with what your sticks are asking for, and sends each ESC a corrected throttle value. That loop is what turns four motors into something you can fly. Everything else — receiver input, GPS, video overlay (OSD), blackbox logging, LED control — is layered on top by the firmware.

Pick the firmware first

The firmware decides what the drone can do; the board only has to be a supported target for it. Choose in this order:

Betaflight — freestyle, racing, cinewhoops

The default for manual FPV flight: the best-tuned flight feel, the biggest community, support on almost every FPV board. It does GPS rescue and basic position awareness but is not built for autonomous missions. Betaflight flight controllers.

INAV — GPS navigation on FPV hardware

Betaflight’s sibling for navigation: waypoints, return-to-home, position and altitude hold, fixed-wing and long-range quads, all on the same class of small boards. If you want a 7″ that flies home on its own, or a plane, this is the firmware. INAV flight controllers.

ArduPilot — autonomy, mapping, agriculture, research

The most capable open autopilot: full mission planning, geofencing, terrain following, sprayer and camera control, and support for every airframe type. It runs on Pixhawk-class hardware and, increasingly, on FPV boards. Configuration is deeper and takes longer; the ground station (Mission Planner or QGroundControl) is part of the workflow. ArduPilot flight controllers.

PX4 — industrial and research stacks

Shares the Pixhawk hardware with ArduPilot but is a different codebase, favoured where the drone talks to a companion computer (ROS, MAVSDK) or in commercial platforms. If you don’t already know you need PX4, ArduPilot is the easier road. PX4 flight controllers.

F4 vs F7 vs H7: the processor

  • F405 — 168 MHz. Runs current Betaflight comfortably at 4 kHz gyro / 4 kHz PID. The value choice for a 5″ quad; watch the UART count (usually 4–6).
  • F722 — 216 MHz with a floating-point unit and more UARTs. Betaflight dropped some F7 targets from new-feature development, so it now sits in an odd middle: fine, but no longer the default upgrade.
  • H743 — 480 MHz, lots of flash and UARTs, 8 kHz loops with headroom. The pick if you run many peripherals (GPS + digital VTX + ELRS + telemetry + camera control) or want the board to outlast two builds. Also the modern target for ArduPilot on FPV-class hardware.

More UARTs is the practical difference: each serial peripheral — receiver, GPS, digital VTX, telemetry radio, ESC telemetry — wants one of its own.

Mounting: 30.5×30.5 vs 20×20 vs Pixhawk

  • 30.5×30.5 mm (M3 holes) — the standard for 5″ and up. Widest choice of boards and ESCs. 30×30 FC + ESC stacks.
  • 20×20 mm (M2 holes) — 2–4″ builds and slim 5″ frames; the same processors in a smaller footprint with fewer pads. 20×20 flight controllers · 20×20 stacks.
  • 25.5×25.5 mm and whoop AIO boards — the FC, ESC and often VTX and receiver on one board for 65–85 mm drones. AIO whoop boards.
  • Pixhawk-style cases — boxed autopilots with connectorised ports (JST-GH), mounted on foam in the centre of the frame. All flight controllers.

Stack or separate boards?

A stack is an FC and a 4-in-1 ESC sold together with the matching ribbon cable and pinout — plug and go, and the manufacturer has already checked they agree on protocol and pads. It is the right choice for almost every FPV build. Separate boards make sense when you already own one half, need an ESC rating the stacks don’t offer, or are building something with single ESCs on the arms. FC + ESC stacks.

Where the Pixhawk 2.4.8 fits

The Pixhawk 2.4.8 is the long-running clone of the original 2013 Pixhawk 1 design — an F427 processor, a boxed case with connectorised ports, and full ArduPilot and PX4 support. It is slow by today’s standards and has less flash than newer boards, but it is inexpensive, well documented, and it flies an F450 or S500 with GPS, return-to-home and missions perfectly well. It is the sensible autopilot for a first ArduPilot build and for student projects; a Pixhawk 6C or 6X is the step up when you need more processing, redundant IMUs and current firmware headroom. It needs a GPS with compass, a power module and a buzzer/safety switch — most kits include the last two.

Checklist before you buy

  • Firmware target exists for the board (check the Betaflight / INAV / ArduPilot hardware list by exact name).
  • Enough UARTs for receiver + GPS + VTX (+ telemetry).
  • Mounting pattern matches the frame and ESC.
  • Voltage input covers your pack (many FPV boards take 2–6S directly, some to 8S; heavy-lift needs a BEC).
  • Built-in OSD chip for analog video, or the right digital-VTX wiring pads (DJI/Walksnail/HDZero).
  • Barometer and blackbox flash if you want altitude hold or tuning logs.

Still unsure? Tell us the frame, the motors and what you want the drone to do, and we will point at two boards. Everything ships pan-India with a GST invoice.