Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Arduino VS PlatformIO

Compare Arduino VS PlatformIO and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Arduino logo Arduino

Build your own electronics

PlatformIO logo PlatformIO

Next-generation IDE for IoT
  • Arduino Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-08-01
  • PlatformIO Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-04

Arduino features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Arduino provides a user-friendly platform, especially for beginners, with an intuitive IDE and a wide range of libraries that simplify coding and hardware control.
  • Large Community
    A vast, active community of users and developers who share knowledge, projects, and provide support through forums, tutorials, and documentation.
  • Open Source
    Both the hardware and software are open source, allowing users to modify, enhance, and create custom projects with the freedom provided by open standards.
  • Diverse Range of Boards
    Arduino offers a wide variety of boards and shields with different capabilities, allowing users to choose the right platform for their specific needs.
  • Cost-Effective
    Arduino boards are generally affordable, making it accessible for hobbyists, students, and educators to experiment and prototype without significant investment.

Possible disadvantages of Arduino

  • Limited Processing Power
    Compared to other microcontrollers and development platforms, Arduino boards typically have lower processing power, which might not be suitable for projects requiring heavy computation.
  • Limited Memory
    Most Arduino boards have limited RAM and storage, which can restrict the complexity of the programs and projects they can handle.
  • Less Suitable for Advanced Projects
    For complex projects requiring more power or advanced features, professional developers might find Arduino's capabilities to be limiting.
  • Dependency on an External Computer
    Arduino's development process often requires a computer for programming and debugging, which might not be ideal in some standalone or embedded applications.
  • Limited Support for Multitasking
    Arduino’s architecture isn't inherently designed for multitasking, which can pose challenges when trying to run multiple processes simultaneously.

PlatformIO features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Support
    PlatformIO provides a unified environment that can be used on Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it versatile for developers who work across different operating systems.
  • Library Management
    PlatformIO has a built-in library management system that helps to manage dependencies easily, including automatic library updates and versioning.
  • Integrated Debugging
    It offers integrated debugging capabilities for a wide range of microcontrollers, which simplifies the process of troubleshooting and fine-tuning code.
  • IDE Integration
    PlatformIO is compatible with popular IDEs such as Visual Studio Code, Atom, and Eclipse, allowing developers to work within their preferred environments.
  • Extensive Board Support
    The platform supports a wide variety of development boards and microcontrollers, providing flexibility for various types of projects.
  • Continuous Integration
    PlatformIO can easily be integrated with CI/CD pipelines, which helps in automating the build and deployment process.
  • Community and Documentation
    There is a strong community and comprehensive documentation available, which can be very helpful for troubleshooting and learning.

Possible disadvantages of PlatformIO

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For beginners, the multitude of features and configurations can be overwhelming, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users report performance issues, such as slow IDE performance, especially when dealing with large projects.
  • Complex Configuration
    The configuration files (`platformio.ini`) can become quite complex, particularly for advanced projects, which may be challenging to manage.
  • Limited GUI Options
    It lacks a full-fledged graphical interface for some advanced settings and debugging options, relying more on configuration files and command line.
  • Dependency on External Tools
    PlatformIO relies on various external tools and plugins, which sometimes may lead to compatibility issues or additional overhead in setting up the development environment.
  • Less Native Support
    While it supports many third-party boards and environments, official support and updates may lag behind native tools specifically provided by those third parties.

Arduino videos

Arduino Starter Kit REVIEW

More videos:

  • Review - 🔴 Arduino Unboxing: Arduino vs Elegoo Uno R3 Starter Kit: best kits for your projects
  • Review - The 5 Best Arduino Starter Kits for 2021

PlatformIO videos

#264 PlatformIO for Arduino, ESP8266, and ESP32 Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - A Better Arduino IDE - Getting Started with PlatformIO

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Arduino and PlatformIO)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100
IoT Platform
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Arduino and PlatformIO. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Arduino might be a bit more popular than PlatformIO. We know about 63 links to it since March 2021 and only 56 links to PlatformIO. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Arduino mentions (63)

  • Tips
    I was gonna say the arduino.cc site but that works too. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Help? DFR Nano Unresponsive
    When you write your code and compile it, what environment are you doing it in? Are you using an online cloud service like arduino.cc's IoT cloud? Or have you downloaded and installed the Arduino IDE application from arduino.cc's software download page? Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Need help with a sound module
    There are tons of libraries for the Arduino platform that people have written and there are many available for use with this module, so you don't have to do any super heavy lifting programming-wise. In the Arduino IDE you can download from arduino.cc I installed a couple of libraries just now as a test. The reason I installed them is because almost every library comes with several short example programs showing... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What to do after Paul McWhorter's New Arduino Tutorials?
    Did all of it make sense? Could you do the projects he shows by yourself without starting and stopping the video? That might show areas that you would want to brush up on. Another great idea is to go through all of the commands on the arduino.cc language reference page. Make sure you instinctively understand what each function listed does and experiment with any that you aren't familiar with. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • LCD on pc
    There are also IoT cloud style dashboards at places like arduino.cc that let you add various widgets for dials and controls to represent the data you have locally with your Arduino. Source: almost 2 years ago
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PlatformIO mentions (56)

  • 13 yo "Vibe Coding" on Raspberry Pi and Arduino
    We searched for other IDEs that would be simple to use, allow easy import of Arduino libraries, and upload the code on the board. I wanted something of the like of Atom editor, but it was not supported on Raspberry Pi (and deprecated now). We found that PlatformIO could be an option. It is a plugin in VSCode that can manage many type of boards. We went ahead, installed VScode, then the PlatformIO extension. We... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Help Needed with Tauri Desktop App for NFC Card Enrollment on ESP32
    For the ESP32 in read mode, we've successfully developed a project using PlatformIO that accepts the key during build time and stores it in memory. Source: over 1 year ago
  • It's 2023 why embedded development is so cumbersome?(rant)
    Check out Zephyr OS and Platform IO. Zephyr is part of the Linux foundation and has similarities to Linux with how it performs hardware abstraction (device tree). Platform IO integrates with other frameworks including mbed and Arduino. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Debug program using PlatformIO and avr-stub
    PlatformIO together with avr-stub can be used to do source level debugging but there are some caveats. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Do you know some sbc or soc that can be programed to run rtos and c++ on top?
    Look into https://platformio.org/, it can abstract over a few RTOSes, and can show you which OSes work with which chips/boards. Source: almost 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Arduino and PlatformIO, you can also consider the following products

Iotellect - Iotellect helps businesses on all continents to develop, deliver and operate IoT/IIoT solutions, services and products.

Arduino IDE - Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware...

Ubidots - A cloud service to capture and make sense of sensor data

Visual Micro - Arduino IDE for Visual Studio and Atmel Studio

Amazon AWS - Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Visuino - Visuino is a visual programming environment that lets you write programs from Arduino circuit boards.