What are the preferred integrated development environments (IDEs) for STM32 microcontrollers?

ST AME Support NF · ‎2021-10-22

Introduction

A typical question new STM32 users ask is what are the preferred IDEs for developing and debugging application code. There are a variety of IDEs available that support the STM32. The most used are STs STM32CubeIDE, Visual Studio Code with the STM32 extension, IAR’s EWARM and Arm® Keil®’s µVision (MDK). A quick overview of each of the IDEs follows:

1. STM32CubeIDE

This is STMicroelectronics’ IDE tool that and is free of charge and supports all the STM32 products.
STM32CubeIDE is an all-in-one multi-OS (Windows, MacOS, Linux) development tool, which is part of the STM32Cube software ecosystem. STM32CubeIDE is an advanced C/C++ development platform with peripheral configuration, code generation, code compilation, and debug features for STM32 microcontrollers and microprocessors. It is based on the Eclipse®/CDT framework and GCC toolchain for the development, and GDB for the debugging.

Download STM32CubeIDE.

2. Visual Studio Code with the STM32 extension

The STM32 Visual Studio Code extension version 2.0.0 eliminates the dependency on STM32CubeIDE by enabling STM32CubeMX to generate native CMake projects directly. With the integration of open-source debug extensions like Cortex®-debug, the new extension provides a robust debugging environment, allowing the use of the familiar VS Code IDE with STM32 targets.

Presented below are some links that help you get started with using the STM32 extension for VS Code:

3. IAR EWARM

This IDE from our partner IAR Systems is available for Windows hosts only and embeds a programming tool.
STM32CubeMX can be used for the configuration phase of the project and allows generating the EWARM project files for a seamless adoption of this professional IDE.
This tool comes with free of charge evaluation versions according to the following conditions:

Unlimited time but 16 KB limited Cortex®-M0/M0+ application size, fit for the STM32C0, STM32F0, STM32G0, and STM32L0 series
Unlimited time but 32 KB limited Cortex®-M application size, fit for any other STM32
30-day limited time per-host PC, unlimited application size

The full version requires a commercial license available in a range of product editions including functional safety precertified versions.
Several licensing models are also provided, such as node locked, USB key locked, and network.
The IDE integrates with additional IAR Systems software tools such as:

C-STAT for static C/C++ code analysis compliant with standards such as MISRA C/C++
C-RUN for runtime error debugging
C-TRUST for security developments
VisualState, for state machine modeling

The IDE is compatible with a wide variety of third-party debug probes and IAR Systems provides its own debug and trace capable probes such as:

I-Jet
I-JetTrace

This IDE supports all the STM32 products and ST provides project examples in the STM32Cube Packages enabling immediate use of this IDE.

Download EWARM from IAR Systems

4. Arm® Keil® µVision (MDK)

This IDE from our partner Arm is available for Windows hosts and embeds a programming tool.
STM32CubeMX can be used for the configuration phase of the project and allows generating the MDK5 project files for seamless adoption of any edition of this professional IDE.

The current version of the MDK is v6, and you can browse the features of the three available editions on Arm's website. The dedicated IDE, µVision, comes as a part of all the available editions.

Keil® MDK is compatible with a wide variety of third-party debug probes and Arm® Keil® provides its own debug and trace capable probes such as:

ULINKplus™
ULINKpro™

This IDE supports all the STM32 products and ST provides project examples in the STM32Cube packages enabling immediate use of this IDE.

Presented below are some links that help you get started with using the Arm® Keil® MDK: