PlatformIO Core vs Raspberry Pi Pico SDK
| PlatformIO Core | Raspberry Pi Pico SDK | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Paid from | Free | Free |
| Open source | No | No |
| Platforms | extension, Linux, macOS, Windows | extension, Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Debugger included | Yes | — |
| SDK components | Arduino, CMSIS, ESP8266 SDKs, Espressif IoT Development Framework, FreeRTOS, Mbed, STM32Cube, Zephyr, and other frameworks and SDKs | C/C++ and assembly headers, hardware APIs, hardware and high-level libraries, networking libraries, runtime infrastructure, CMake build system |
| Target architectures | AVR, ARM-based Atmel SAM, ESP32, ESP8266, 8051, PIC32, Nordic nRF51/nRF52, RISC-V, STM32, STM8, MSP430, TIVA, and others | RP2040 Arm Cortex-M0+; RP2350 Arm Cortex-M33 and Hazard3 RISC-V |
| Host platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Linux ARMv6+ | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Build systems | PlatformIO Build System with platformio.ini project configuration | CMake |
| Debug interfaces | Atmel-ICE, Black Magic Probe, CMSIS-DAP, JTAG-HS1, J-LINK, ESP-Prog, QEMU, Renode, ST-LINK, TI-ICDI, Verilator, and custom interfaces | SWD, USB-to-SWD, UART, OpenOCD and GDB |
| License model | open-source | open-source |
Both are listed in Best Embedded Systems Toolchains. On Inferse, PlatformIO Core scores higher on our published basis.