Keil MDK-ARM VS IAR EWARM VS CXSTM32 IDEs

[PWong]

Hi everyone,

just got myself a STM32F0 Discovery kit as I wanted to try out a M0 chip, as I'm going to install the development toolchains, I found several of them that I could potentially used but not sure which one is more suitable for my needs. So I need some opinion from you guys. the IDEs I'm looking at are:

1. Keil MDK-ARM
2. IAR EWARM
3. CXSTM32

All three of them presents itself as compiler and debugger. So I'm wondering how are they different from each other and when to use each of them gives better results than the others.

Note: I'm looking into putting some putting some sensors from MAXIM and STM on the discovery kit and extract data from the sensors.

thanks.

[Imen Ezzine]

Hi PWong,

I think I can give an opinion on IAR and Keil:

First you have to keep in mind that they both require license, and offer free binary code up to xxKB for evaluation/private use only. Although keil is more flexible in this area ( I believe Keil even offers a complete free trial when it comes to Core_M0 based MCU)

IAR has a better editor and compiler, but Keil has a much better simulator and debugger. I think if you are to go with ARM, Keil is a better solution, much more suited for ARM MCUs and with reduced learning time compared to IAR. If you are new to ARM, I think your peripheral routines (SPI, UART etc) will be set more quickly with Keil, because of the advanced debugging tools.

Hope this helps

-Imen

[Tesla DeLorean]

It usually comes down either to personal taste, or mandates from bosses. A lot of that is look-n-feel, and how much time it takes to perform basic tasks.

Keil has a free license for ST CM0(+) parts, and is generally a lot more robust in terms of compiling and debugging out of the box.

The code is well optimized, and the start up code is more complete and polished.

The GNU/GCC based tools tend to be a lot more fickle and broken, it is like a car that needs you to fiddle under the hood all the time, and know it's quirks.

Basically all the support costs and expectations have been dumped on the user.

[Pavel A.]

https://platformio.org

https://visualgdb.com/?features=embedded