Is STM8 recomendded for beginners?

[rabbi141]

I have experience with PIC and AVR microcontrollers, but they lack the good debug features of the STM8 series. Furthermore, these microcontrollers aren't cheap. While looking for simple and inexpensive chips, I keep coming across the STM8 series.

Mastering a new microcontroller takes time. I'm confused about learning the STM8 because STMicroelectronics is recommending their STM32 series, which uses the ARM Cortex-M core. This recommendation makes me wonder if investing time in the STM8 is a good idea, or if it would be better to learn the more widely-supported and future-proof STM32 family.

[Peter BENSCH · Accepted solution]

Welcome @rabbi141, to the community!

The STM8 and their tools are already very old, all date from the last millennium and are actually only useful for projects that are already running.

In fact, the STM32 mentioned are the much more modern MCUs, where you can look at one of the STM32C0 for simple applications, for example.

A warning in passing: questions regularly arise here in the community about so-called Blue Pill boards not working as desired. For years, only incompatible clones have been used for these products from Asian manufacturers.

If you want to start with a ready-made and 100% functional and supported board, I recommend one of the NUCLEO boards, e.g. a nice and cosy NUCLEO-32, each of which also contains an ST-LINK debugger.

Hope this helps?

Good luck
/Peter