Zephyr RTOS — Scalable Real-Time Operating System for IoT
Open-source RTOS under the Linux Foundation supporting 500+ boards across ARM, RISC-V, x86, and Xtensa architectures. Features multi-threading, BLE 5.0 mesh, native networking stack, and power management for resource-constrained IoT devices.
Zephyr RTOS
Zephyr is a scalable, open-source real-time operating system designed for resource-constrained embedded and IoT devices — from simple environmental sensors and LED wearables to sophisticated embedded controllers and wireless gateways.
Key Features
Kernel & Threading
- Multi-threading with cooperative, priority-based, and preemptive scheduling
- EDF (Earliest Deadline First) and meta IRQ scheduling algorithms
- Interrupt handling, semaphores, mutexes, message queues
- Configurable stack-overflow protection and memory isolation
Networking & Connectivity
- Native networking stack with BSD socket-compatible API
- Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 with GAP, GATT, pairing, and BLE Mesh
- Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 6LoWPAN, CAN, USB
- OpenThread mesh networking
- LwM2M, CoAP, MQTT, HTTP support
- Cloud integrations: AWS IoT, Azure, TagoIO
Storage & Filesystems
- Virtual filesystem with ext2, FatFs, and LittleFS support
- Non-volatile storage (NVS) and settings subsystem
Security
- Memory protection with stack-overflow detection
- Thread isolation (x86, ARC, ARM)
- PSA Crypto and TF-M integration
- Kernel object permission tracking
Power Management
- Configurable idle, suspend, and device power management
- Ultra-low-power operation on supported hardware
Supported Architectures
- ARM Cortex-M (M0, M0+, M3, M4, M7, M23, M33, M55)
- ARM Cortex-A and Cortex-R
- ARM 64-bit (AArch64)
- Intel x86 / x86-64
- RISC-V (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Tensilica Xtensa (ESP32 family)
- Synopsys ARC (ARCv2/v3)
- MIPS, SPARC V8, Renesas RX
Supported Hardware
Over 500 boards from vendors including Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, STMicroelectronics, Espressif, Texas Instruments, Microchip, Infineon, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, BeagleBoard, and many more.
Community
Hosted by the Linux Foundation with platinum members including Google, Intel, Meta, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, and Analog Devices. Over 3,194 contributors and 134,000+ commits.
