In the category of SBC's, it's pretty much the only one that has good software support, not outdated images made with a bunch of kernel patches for a specific kernel version.
Cf. the various Beagle boards which have mainline linux and u-boot support right from release, together with real open hardware right down to board layouts you can customise. And when you come to manufacture something more than just a dev board, you can actually get the SoC from your normal distributor and drop it on your board - unlike the strange Broadcom SoCs rpi use.
I'm quite a lot more positive about rp2040 and rp2350, where they've at least partially broken free of that Broadcom ball-and-chain.