Keil vs TrueSTUDIO IDE

Bogdan Golab · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 16:19

I have been using Keil IDE for years (as a hobbyist).

Maybe someone who knows both Keil & TrueStudio could share some details about pros & cons.

I know that the primary difference is lack of licensing limits in TS (Keil - 32kB for non F0/L0 MCUs). I have Segger programmer/debugger (read that some features may need it on TrueStudio).

Andrew Neil · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 20:32

I haven't used TrueStudio but, AIUI, it is just another Eclipse+GCC.

I have used many Eclipse+GCC.

I first used Keil (8051 and then ARM) way back in the 90s, but have been away from it for around a decade - mostly with the

Eclipse+GCC crowd, plus some VisualStudio based.

I must say that uVision still seems to be stuck back in the 90s - it is pretty lame by today's

standards.

The Bug Thing about Keil is that you get debugging which Just Works; setting up the debugging is always a nightmare with 'vanilla' Eclipse - it is the main thing that all the vendor-specific Eclipse offerings (try to) provide.

And, of course, Keil is vendor-neutral.

Compiler-wise, Keil is a dedicated cross-compiler, specifically designed for embedded applications. GCC is not - and that shows in a number of places.

Keil, of course, is now part of ARM - so their compiler really should be good!

(having said that, ARM themselves do maintain the ARM GCC).

I haven't done any side-by-side benchmarks recently (meaning, in Cortex days).

The trouble with all the

vendor-specific Eclipse offerings is that they all seem to do a (slightly) different set of tweaks to the 'standard' Eclipse project files - so it is never straightforward to move a project from one to another (or to/from a 'vanilla' Eclipse).

:(

I don't know if that is a deliberate attempt at lock-in, or just a by-product?

HTH

Pavel A. · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 20:44

Ah, free! It's a sweet word - freedom ))

Just installed it, built a small Cube generated project for my system and got first impressions after uVision5:

- The compiler and linker are GNU, there already have been observations about quality of gcc code vs. armcc in this forum.

- Debugger is GDB server on a local ip port, it found my STLINK dongle and seems to work - except of some glitches that can be specific to GNU compiler: especially, weird jumps backwards when stepping thru linear C code.

- The IDE is obviously Eclipse. It is good news for people comfortable with Eclipse (you can install all your favorite editor plugins and updates). But for a beginner, Eclipse can be intimidating after clean simple IDEs of Keil and IAR.

- pa

Alex R · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 21:04

Hi,

I use Keil MDK-ARM and the debugging/tracing capabilities are excellent.

The IDE editor is ok, but I prefer to edit on another programmer's editor.

TrueSTUDIO is Eclipse-based, so it may be familiar, as it is used by several other IDE's.

The new version of TrueSTUDIO for STM32 includes all Pro features at no charge for STM32 developers

This should include:

Advanced debugging capabilities

CPU fault analyzer
Global expressions live watch
Real-time data access tracing (SWV)
Printf()-style software tracing (ITM)
Statistical profiling (SWV)
Exception and Interrupt tracing (SWV)
Instruction tracing (ETM/ETB + MTB)
RTOS Kernel-aware debugging
Multi-core/board debugging

Note that for ETM tracing you would need a Segger J-Trace, not just a J-Link.

Alex R.

Bogdan Golab · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 21:37

Thank you all for your insights.

Frankly, I do not like eclipse based tools. I use eclipse tools for regular gcc development for Windows and it's too complicated for me when I compare it with Keil.

Andrew Neil · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 22:30

I didn't like Eclipse initially, but now going back to Keil shows just how lame uVision is!!

Zang Man · ‎2018-01-19

Posted on January 20, 2018 at 02:20

Isn't the free version of Keil limited to 32KB only? In that aspect, I prefer using TrueStudio especially since the latest v9 now is 100% Free for STM32 chips.

Andrew Neil · ‎2018-01-20

Posted on January 20, 2018 at 20:39

There is a free Keil for STM32L0/F0 which is limited to 256K:

http://www2.keil.com/stmicroelectronics-stm32/mdk

Otherwise, the 'MDK Lite' is, indeed, limited to 32K:

http://www2.keil.com/mdk5/editions/lite

but note that commercial use is now allowed.

http://www.keil.com/demo/limits.asp

Bogdan Golab · ‎2018-01-20

Posted on January 20, 2018 at 20:54

Switch to LL drivers - 32k limit won't be a problem in most simple projects.

Zang Man · ‎2018-01-20

Posted on January 21, 2018 at 00:46

I'm learning the low level API at the moment. Prefer it over Cube or HAL mainly because I learn more about how things under the hood work. I'm no where near the 32K at the moment, but it's kind of annoying to think that after I get proficient with the hardware and the IDE and start pushing the limits, I'm blocked by the IDE.

>:(