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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to C++ library for embedded and IoT projects (ESP32)

Hi everyone. I've recently released control-components, a C++ library I've been using for most of my embedded projects. It is written in C++17 (with some features from C++20) and uses STL and FreeRTOS under the hood. It contains a lot of building blocks that is commonly used in embedded and IoT projects: finite state machines (FSM), various counters, synchronisation primitives, system loops, sensors, schedulers, HTTP, WiFi, Web GUI, and much more. It also provides GitHub CI workflows for build automation (ccache, various checks). In general, it's a good starting point for an ESP32 project.…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1

    As part of a little research and also some fun I decided to try my hand at seeing how small of an ESP32 board I can make with functioning WiFi.

    Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Example repo: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo The underlying ESP-IDF component: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezybox It is something like Raspberry Pi, but without the overhead of a full server-grade OS. It captures a lot of the old school DOS era coding experience. I created a custom fast text mode driver, plan to add VGA-like graphics next. ANSI text demos run smooth, as you can see in the demo video featured in the Readme. App installs also work smoothly. The first time it installed 6 apps from my git repo with one command, felt…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Repo: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/xcc700 Hi Everyone! I just wrote my first compiler! - single pass, recursive descent, direct emission - generates REL ELF binaries, runnable using ESP-IDF elf_loader - very basic features only, just enough for self-hosting - treats the Xtensa CPU as a stack machine for simplicity, no register allocation / window usage - compilable on Mac, probably also Linux, can cross-compile for esp32 there - wrote for fun / cyberdeck project Sample output from esp32: xcc700.elf xcc700.c -o /d/cc.elf [ xcc700 ] BUILD COMPLETED >…

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    beLow▲176

    Inline insights with C/C++ that shows CPU, memory, energy

    Dec 2025 · wedolow.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    I love C and C++, but setting up projects can sometimes be a pain. Every time I wanted to start something new I'd spend the first hour writing CMakeLists.txt, figuring out find_package, copying boilerplate from my last project, and googling why my library isn't linking. By the time the project was actually set up I'd lost all momentum. So, I built Craft - a lightweight build and workflow tool for C and C++. Instead of writing CMake, your project configuration goes in a simple craft.toml: [project] name = "my_app" version = "0.1.0" language = "c" c_standard = 99 [build] type = "executable"…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    A little help for programmers, who wants to run C/C++ code in the browser. (This is my second attempt to show it, first time I got banned bcoz of my personal page domain, I don't really understand it why is is suspicious.)

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    Open-source ESP32 emulator. Run real firmware locally or in your browser — no hardware, no cloud, no subscription. - mikroverk/esp32sim

    4d ago · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    A C++ HTML template engine that uses compile time HTML parsing - rep-movsd/see-phit

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9CC
  10. 10

    Hi HN! I've built [CXXStateTree](https://github.com/ZigRazor/CXXStateTree), a modern C++ header-only library to create hierarchical state machines with clean, intuitive APIs. It supports: - Deeply nested states - Entry/exit handlers - State transitions with guards and actions - Asynchronous transitions with `co_await` (C++20 coroutines) - Optional runtime type identification for flexibility It's ideal for complex control logic, embedded systems, games, robotics, and anywhere you'd use a finite state machine. I’d love feedback, use cases, or contributions from the…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Hi HN! Korean high school senior here, about to start CS in college. I built a browser engine from scratch in C++ to understand how browsers work. First time using C++, 8 weeks of development, lots of debugging—but it works! Features: - HTML parsing with error correction - CSS cascade and inheritance - Block/inline layout engine - Async image loading + caching - Link navigation + history Hardest parts: - String parsing(html, css) - Rendering - Image Caching & Layout Reflowing What I learned (beyond code): - Systematic debugging is crucial - Ship with known bugs rather than chase…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    A high performance, middleware oriented C++14 http web framework please use matt-42/lithium instead - matt-42/silicon

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    AOO is a lightweight and flexible peer-to-peer audio streaming and messaging solution. It allows to send audio and messages in real-time and on demand between network endpoints - not only in local networks, but also over the public internet! The C/C++ library can be easily embedded in host applications or plugins. It even runs on embedded devices, such as the ESP32. In addition, the project contains a Pure Data external and a SuperCollider extension. The following article provides a high level introduction and demonstrates some use cases:…

    2024 · aoo.iem.sh · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Hi HN! Last year the project I launched here got a lot of good feedback on creating speech to speech AI on the ESP32. Recently I revamped the whole stack, iterated on that feedback and made our project fully open-source—all of the client, hardware, firmware code. This Github repo turns an ESP32-S3 into a realtime AI speech companion using the OpenAI Realtime API, Arduino WebSockets, Deno Edge Functions, and a full-stack web interface. You can talk to your own custom AI character, and it responds instantly. I couldn't find a resource that helped set up a reliable, secure websocket (WSS) AI…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Hi HN! This is an SDK for ESP32s (microcontrollers) that runs against OpenAI's new WebRTC service [0] My hope is that people can easily add AI to lots of 'real' devices. Wearable devices, speakers around the house, toys etc... You don't have to write any code, just buy a device and set some env variables. If you have any feedback/questions I would love to hear! I hope this kicks off a generation of new interesting devices. If you aren't familiar with WebRTC it can do some magical things. Check out WebRTC for the Curious[1] and would love to talk about all the cool things that does also.…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hello Hacker News. I’m Martin, a graduate student from Prague, and I’ve been working on Coros, a C++ library for task-based parallelism. After spending some time with OpenMP and oneTBB, I wanted to try building a library using modern features from the C++ standard library. I’ve used coroutines for task encapsulation and C++23 expected for exception handling, while trying to maintain good performance. Additionally, I’ve implemented monadic-like behavior to allow easy chaining of tasks, similar to the monadic operations in std::expected. You can check out the project here:…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    A while back I wrote a CHIP-8 emulator (which is considered the Hello, World! of emulators and is more accurately a virtual machine since historically CHIP-8 was an interpreted language running on top of the COSMAC VIP to make game programming easier). But a few months ago I got really interested in embedded software, so decided it would be neat to port my emulator to a STM32 MCU and design a console around it as a learning experience, since CHIP-8 never existed as a physical system. I didn't know much about embedded software when I began, and even less about electronics, but I managed to…

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Codebrowser homepage

    2016 · code.woboq.org · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Open-source and real-time orchestrator for cyber-physical-systems, to easily design, test and deploy embedded applications and digital twins. - Luos-io/luos_engine

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22AM

    Hi all, I’m hacking on new features for the ClickHouse native client and wanted the same “just call the model” ergonomics JavaScript and Python now enjoy. It didn’t exist for modern C++, so I wrote one. ai‑sdk‑cpp (Apache‑2.0) gives you: - Unified calls to OpenAI (GPT‑4o) and Anthropic (Claude 3.5) with a single C++20 API. - Streaming, multi‑turn chat, error handling—all std::optional/std::variant, no macros. - Tool calling (function‑calling) so the model can hit real APIs; sync or async, runs in parallel. The tricky bit: C++ still lacks real reflection, so mapping plain functions →…

    2025 · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    The fastest RVA23 RISC-V sandbox. Contribute to libriscv/libriscv development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    C++ library for reading MacBook lid angle sensor data - ufoym/mac-angle

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

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