Depends on the device. M2 is better as long as the bios will use it.

I’m upgrading from M1 to M2 pro in a couple weeks. I’ve been doing more React Native dev stuff which starts to thrash a M1 on an Air. I looked into getting an M1 Pro from Apple Refurbished, but it was only $300 more to get a brand new M2 Pro.

I think the most important thing is to make sure you upgrade the SSD from the base so that you get multiple NAND chips. On the base model, Apple only puts in 1 NAND which decreases read performance.

I got an m1 (non pro) for work, and even with 16 GB RAM, this thing never beach balls, even under the weight of docker or heavy builds.