{"slug": "zephyr", "name": "Zephyr", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 14, "warners": 1, "score": 5.084, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-03", "latest": "2026-10-10", "why": "newer Zephyr Iot (awesome, also underlies Framework's new embedded controllers)", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 8, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "newer Zephyr Iot (awesome, also underlies Framework's new embedded controllers)", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "zephyrproject.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.zephyrproject.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Zephyr"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800598192, "item_id": 50037387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037387", "by": "RantyDave", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "became a fan of Zephyr", "excerpt": "I've had limited adventures in embedded software and as part of that became a fan of Zephyr (http://www.zephyrproject.org) and wonder about its potential application as a unikernel. On the plus side: it's a unikernel. You compile it and your application together and get a binary. It has support for running on virtual hardware (https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/hardware/virtualization/virtio.html) and virtio is th", "context": "", "use_case": "Embedded OS and unikernel", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unikernels were hard. key word: were"}, {"id": 776337920, "item_id": 48521120, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48521120", "by": "jauntywundrkind", "date": "2026-06-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "newer Zephyr Iot (awesome, also underlies Framework's new embedded controllers)", "excerpt": "Pentium 4 (2000) released at 3.2GB/s memory bandwidth, and scaled to 6.4GB/s over the years. That was not a chip to be proud of, but it provides a snapshot, a reference point in time to compare against. Having 3GB/s memory bandwidth here is... surprising. Based off the single vs multi-scores looking so lopsided, it sure seems likely. Having an \"AI\" inference chip with such bandwidth is wild. Comparing to the Cix P1 /", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The MilkV Jupiter 2/SpacemiT K3 (RISC-V vector compute)"}, {"id": 774556466, "item_id": 48409779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409779", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-06-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "other FOSS OSes are being adopted, without GPL licensing, like Zephyr, NutXX, FreeRTOS", "excerpt": "This is not the first distro coming out of Microsoft, see Azure Sphere OS. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/internet-of-things-show/introduction-to-the-azure-sphere-os I would rather say UNIX won the server room, Linux just happens to be the UNIX clone most people hack on nowadays, and can change tomorrow as companies take over and people like Linus eventually pass the torch. You can already see that on embedd", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux"}, {"id": 752493744, "item_id": 47030859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47030859", "by": "voxadam", "date": "2026-02-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Zephyr is what Nordic bases all of their modern SDKs on.", "excerpt": "Zephyr is what Nordic bases all of their modern SDKs on. Hopefully Zephyr helps unify the open source RTOS world in the same way Linux did for larger systems. https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-software/nRF-Connect-SDK/Zephyr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zephyr Real Time Operating System from the Linux Foundation"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 755995282, "item_id": 47249705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249705", "by": "yokostuno", "date": "2026-03-04", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "nRF Connect SDK + the Zephyr config/tooling stack", "excerpt": "Hi HN \u2014 I\u2019m Hoan. I\u2019ve been building IOcomposer (https://iocomposer.io), a free Eclipse-based IDE and optional AI assistant for embedded C++ development. Try it (one-script install): https://iocomposer.io (macOS/Linux/Windows install commands are on the landing page. If you don\u2019t like curl|bash, download the script, read it, then run it locally.) Context (using nRF54 as the example): if you\u2019re coming from years of nR", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: IOcomposer \u2013 AI-assisted IDE \u2013 nRF54 bare-metal (no Devicetree/Kconfig)"}]}], "who": [{"by": "mrheosuper", "context": "embedded developer adapting to Rust", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546621", "date": "2026-09-03"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["embedded rtos", "embedded os and unikernel", "real-time os on raspberry pi", "embedded firmware"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45773421", "title": "The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50033357", "title": "Unikernels were hard. key word: were", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828969", "title": "The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49540415", "title": "Async Rust vs RTOS showdown (2022)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156683", "title": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48494270", "title": "The MilkV Jupiter 2/SpacemiT K3 (RISC-V vector compute)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"compare": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "quotes": [{"id": 800598192, "item_id": 50037387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037387", "by": "RantyDave", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "became a fan of Zephyr", "excerpt": "I've had limited adventures in embedded software and as part of that became a fan of Zephyr (http://www.zephyrproject.org) and wonder about its potential application as a unikernel. On the plus side: it's a unikernel. You compile it and your application together and get a binary. It has support for running on virtual hardware (https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/hardware/virtualization/virtio.html) and virtio is th", "context": "", "use_case": "Embedded OS and unikernel", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unikernels were hard. key word: were"}, {"id": 797327808, "item_id": 49832988, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49832988", "by": "zelo", "date": "2026-09-24", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Zephyr rtos on raspberry pi sbc", "excerpt": "Zephyr rtos on raspberry pi sbc https://github.com/jetpax/PiZZa/tree/main", "context": "", "use_case": "Real-time OS on Raspberry Pi", "switched_from": "", "story": "The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi"}, {"id": 792745938, "item_id": 49546621, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546621", "by": "mrheosuper", "date": "2026-09-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Most of exist C RTOS work quite similar(FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX)", "excerpt": "It's not about features, i believe i am not that advance user. It's just different from the RTOS i used to work on. Most of exist C RTOS work quite similar(FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX), the difference is mostly in API and Software support arround the core kernel. But Embassy, with different task switching mechanism, mean i need to learn another new concept, understanding the pros/cons. That is not what i want to do whe", "context": "embedded developer adapting to Rust", "use_case": "embedded RTOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Async Rust vs RTOS showdown (2022)"}, {"id": 786638305, "item_id": 49164894, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49164894", "by": "ericrwx", "date": "2026-08-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "What we've deployed recently: TypeScript, WASM, Rust, C, Python, RTOS (Zephyr, FreeRTOS), embedded Linux.", "excerpt": "Canopy | Staff Software Engineer, Sensing | SF Bay Area (Peninsula) | HYBRID | Full-time | $200-225K + equity | https://canopyworks.com Canopy builds the real-time coordination layer for hospitals: communication, safety, location intelligence, and response across large, complex care environments. Every hospital is a logistics problem wrapped around a clinical one, with millions of people and events an hour across the", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2026)"}, {"id": 776337920, "item_id": 48521120, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48521120", "by": "jauntywundrkind", "date": "2026-06-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "newer Zephyr Iot (awesome, also underlies Framework's new embedded controllers)", "excerpt": "Pentium 4 (2000) released at 3.2GB/s memory bandwidth, and scaled to 6.4GB/s over the years. That was not a chip to be proud of, but it provides a snapshot, a reference point in time to compare against. Having 3GB/s memory bandwidth here is... surprising. Based off the single vs multi-scores looking so lopsided, it sure seems likely. Having an \"AI\" inference chip with such bandwidth is wild. Comparing to the Cix P1 /", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The MilkV Jupiter 2/SpacemiT K3 (RISC-V vector compute)"}, {"id": 774556466, "item_id": 48409779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409779", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-06-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "other FOSS OSes are being adopted, without GPL licensing, like Zephyr, NutXX, FreeRTOS", "excerpt": "This is not the first distro coming out of Microsoft, see Azure Sphere OS. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/internet-of-things-show/introduction-to-the-azure-sphere-os I would rather say UNIX won the server room, Linux just happens to be the UNIX clone most people hack on nowadays, and can change tomorrow as companies take over and people like Linus eventually pass the torch. You can already see that on embedd", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux"}, {"id": 765704481, "item_id": 47856530, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47856530", "by": "tonyarkles", "date": "2026-04-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Awesome! Yeah, I haven't used west-sans-Zephyr yet but interestingly enough NXP decided to use it for their MCUXpresso framework: https://github.com/nxp-mcuxpresso/mcuxsdk-manifests/blob/main/west.yml I have mixed feelings about west in general, but I like it enough that I'd probably look at doing something like that in the future too for harmony-sake with our existing Zephyr projects.", "context": "", "use_case": "embedded firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "I don't want your PRs anymore"}, {"id": 755995282, "item_id": 47249705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249705", "by": "yokostuno", "date": "2026-03-04", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "nRF Connect SDK + the Zephyr config/tooling stack", "excerpt": "Hi HN \u2014 I\u2019m Hoan. I\u2019ve been building IOcomposer (https://iocomposer.io), a free Eclipse-based IDE and optional AI assistant for embedded C++ development. Try it (one-script install): https://iocomposer.io (macOS/Linux/Windows install commands are on the landing page. If you don\u2019t like curl|bash, download the script, read it, then run it locally.) Context (using nRF54 as the example): if you\u2019re coming from years of nR", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: IOcomposer \u2013 AI-assisted IDE \u2013 nRF54 bare-metal (no Devicetree/Kconfig)"}, {"id": 755333936, "item_id": 47208371, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47208371", "by": "westurner", "date": "2026-03-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Why ZephyrOS?", "excerpt": "Why ZephyrOS? ZephyrOS: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr Would there be value in modeling this system with TLA+? Why build another open product? There are a few GitHub topics for solar electricity: solar: https://github.com/topics/solar photovoltaic: https://github.com/topics/photovoltaic pv: https://github.com/topics/pv battery-management: https://github.com/topics/battery-management ups-management: http", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Libre Solar \u2013 Open Hardware for Renewable Energy"}, {"id": 752493744, "item_id": 47030859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47030859", "by": "voxadam", "date": "2026-02-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Zephyr is what Nordic bases all of their modern SDKs on.", "excerpt": "Zephyr is what Nordic bases all of their modern SDKs on. Hopefully Zephyr helps unify the open source RTOS world in the same way Linux did for larger systems. https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-software/nRF-Connect-SDK/Zephyr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zephyr Real Time Operating System from the Linux Foundation"}, {"id": 749176386, "item_id": 46823524, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46823524", "by": "pastage", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "from my short three day experience with Zephyr I like uCLinux a lot better", "excerpt": "Linux required MMU from the start, uCLinux and nommu patches does work. I used it a long time ago it was great, but there are lots of small things like stack size is set compile time, memory mapped io does not work... You do get lots of functionality from Linux from my short three day experience with Zephyr I like uCLinux a lot better at least on STM32. Xous seemed very nice together with Precursor which is the only ", "context": "", "use_case": "embedded RTOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Xous Operating System"}, {"id": 742375904, "item_id": 46398494, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398494", "by": "ValdikSS", "date": "2025-12-26", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "As well as Zephyr, NuttX RTOSes, MicroPython.", "excerpt": "In case anyone interested, you can run (nommu) Linux on ESP32 Xtensa boards https://github.com/jcmvbkbc/esp32-linux-build ESP32-S3 N16R8 is <$5 on aliexpress: - Dual-core Xtensa 240 MHz - 16 MB NOR flash (eXecute-in-place supported) - 8 MB (PS)RAM - Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz 802.11n, Bluetooth As well as Zephyr, NuttX RTOSes, MicroPython.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Xcc700: Self-hosting mini C compiler for ESP32 (Xtensa) in 700 lines"}, {"id": 732767761, "item_id": 45797985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797985", "by": "alex7o", "date": "2025-11-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "what you describe is already possible with the pi and asymmetric multiprocessing using openamp and zephyr.", "excerpt": "It runs the Arduino app on a separate mcu stm32l4 I think. So you have the realtime as well, but what you describe is already possible with the pi and asymmetric multiprocessing using openamp and zephyr. I remember reading about this in some blogs so here is one I found that describes just that: https://telmomoya.blogspot.com/2016/10/asymmetric-multi-processing-amp-with.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC"}, {"id": 732758562, "item_id": 45797410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797410", "by": "lawik", "date": "2025-11-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "get some practice with Zephyr on the MCU", "excerpt": "I wonder if the limitation of the application processor and Linux starting is mostly a default for the standard OS or an actual limitation. Typically with a hybrid SoC like this part of the point is that you can use the micro-controller as the power efficient thing that decides when the bigger application processor should boot or not. I'd be curious to see if that's possible with this one. Shipping only Debian to sta", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC"}]}