Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to TinyOS – A minimalist RTOS for Cortex-M written in C
Contribute to cmc-labo/tinyos-rtos development by creating an account on GitHub.
TinyOS is a real-time operating system designed for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, written entirely in C. It targets embedded systems developers who need a lightweight kernel without unnecessary complexity. The system… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1JA
2015 · janos.io · its alternatives →
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A minimal C runtime for Linux i386 & x86_64. Contribute to lpsantil/rt0 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I pretty much always have a kernel project going on, and have been that way for decades. Over the past couple of years, that's been Anos, which has gotten further along than any of my previous hobby kernels, supporting IPC, multitasking, SMP (x86-64 only right now) and running on real hardware. LLMs (mostly Claude Code) have been used during development, but I learned early on that it's not _great_ at code at this level, so I've restricted its use to mostly documentation and tests. There's _a little_ AI code in the user space, but I have a strict "no AI code" rule in the kernel itself. I…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4TA
1. Single universal binary, that can be natively executed on every hardware platform Mac OS X was made for (32/64 bit, PowerPC/x86/AppleSilicon). 2. Minimalistic gadget-style design. If launched as a tool, there is no menubar, no dock icon, no nothing, just the clock window. 3. Support for hidpi and dark mode for environments, that have them. 4. Window title bar for moving the window with a mouse, and a handle to resize it (latter for OS versions, that have it). 5. Can be easily ported to GNUStep and thus other OSes (sources under GPLv3). 6. Simple Makefile build system.
2022 · tycho.sytes.net · its alternatives →
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Go compiler for small places. Microcontrollers, WebAssembly (WASM/WASI), and command-line tools. Based on LLVM. - tinygo-org/tinygo
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I’m Dvir, a young developer. Last year, I got rejected after a job interview because I lacked some CPU knowledge. After that, I decided to deepen my understanding in the low level world and learn how things work under the hood. I decided to try and create an OS in C and ASM as a way to broaden my knowledge in this area. This took me on the most interesting ride, where I’ve learned about OS theory and low level programming on a whole new level. I’ve spent hours upon hours, blood and tears, reading different OS theory blogs, learning low level concepts, debugging, testing and working on…
Oct 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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The operating system for smart frames. Runs on a Raspberry Pi or ESP32, renders on e-ink, HDMI and LCD displays. Standalone, self-hosted, or managed from FrameOS Cloud - everything renders on the device.
2024 · frameos.net · its alternatives →
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RISC-V's compressed instruction (RVC) extension is intended as an add-on to the regular, 32-bit instruction set, not a replacement or competitor. Its designers intended RVC instructions to be expanded into regular 32-bit RV32I equivalents via a pre-decoder. What happens if we explicitly architect a RISC-V CPU to execute RVC instructions, and "mop up" any RV32I instructions that aren't convenient via a microcode layer? What architectural optimizations are unlocked as a result? "Minimax" is an experimental RISC-V implementation intended to establish if an RVC-optimized CPU is, in practice, any…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Minos2 is a micro-kernel OS. Contribute to minosproject/minos2 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10MO
2016 · minocacorp.com · its alternatives →
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:racehorse: Extremely minimal vmm for linux written in C. Hopefully someday will spin linux-vm for you. - flouthoc/wiser
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12
Hello HN, I've been working on a simple OS for tinkering and running bare metal apps on vintage PCs. Since I couldn't quite decide whether to target pure 16-bit, or slightly more capable 32-bit machines, I ended up with two separate versions: - GentleOS/32 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos32) works on i386+, requires 4MB of RAM and VGA display supporting 640x480x16 mode or any 256-color VESA mode. - GentleOS/16 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos) works on 80186+, requires less than 192KB of RAM and a CGA display supporting 320x200x4…
Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
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 →
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A minimal C runtime for Linux i386 & x86_64. Contribute to lpsantil/rt0 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
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A minimal RISC-V 32-bit OS written in Zig. Contribute to botirkhaltaev/pico-os development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Minimalist, dependency-free virtual machine sandbox for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Single C file, no dynamic memory allocations, asynchronous design, pure C99 - ringtailsoftware/uvm32
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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This project contains no code from Linux, BSD, Minix, or any other OS. Everything up until this point is written entirely from scratch, including a pure microkernel (that only implements multiprocessor priority scheduling, memory management, and interprocess communication), a work-in-progress implementation of the standard C library, and a variety of servers that provide drivers and other essential OS functionality. At the time of writing this post, the servers provide drivers for the keyboard, NVMe SSDs (that works on real hardware), a Unix-like virtual file system (with a single root…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
A multitasking monolithic Kernel based x86 targeting Operating System written in C# from scratch aiming for high-level implementation of drivers in managed environment. - amaneureka/AtomOS
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19RA
2016 · jamesmunns.com · its alternatives →
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A Tiny Basic: An Actually Tiny BASIC for Arduino. Contribute to trevorjay/atinybasic development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Clock mini▲100Tiny Tanks brings quick desktop battles to macOS: patrol to earn gold, upgrade range/cooldown/repair speed, and jump into fast fights in seconds.
2018 · airwolfspace.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Node.js scratchpad for macOS with direct access from menubar
2019 · tinyscratchpad.netlify.com · its alternatives →
- 23
I've been working on this for ~3 months now, with pretty slow progress to be honest. So far I've got an ATA PIO mode hard disk driver, a FAT32 file system, a real time clock driver, and of course the essentials (interrupts, keyboard, pixel graphics). Kernel panics also cause a blue screen of death xD. It uses a bitmap physical memory allocator, and I'm fixing some issues with paging at the moment as a work towards running userspace applications. I'd be interested to see your thoughts on it :D
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
tiny_coro is a lightweight, educational M:N asynchronous runtime written from scratch using C++20 coroutines. It's designed to strip away the complexity of industrial libraries (like Seastar or Folly) to show the core mechanics clearly. Key Technical Features: M:N Scheduling: Maps M coroutines to N kernel threads (Work-Stealing via Chase-Lev deque). Memory Safety: Implements EBR (Epoch-Based Reclamation) to manage memory safely in lock-free structures without GC. Visualizations: I used Manim (the engine behind 3Blue1Brown) to create animations showing exactly how tasks are stolen and…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- JanOS – A new OS that turns your smartphone into an IoT board alternatives
- Tiny C runtime Linux (rt0), HelloWorld 0.6k (i386), sbrk example added alternatives
- Anos – a hand-written ~100KiB microkernel for x86-64 and RISC-V alternatives
- TinyClock – a tiny true 5-arch universal Mac OS X single-binary GUI app alternatives
- TinyGo – LLVM-based Go compiler for microcontrollers alternatives
- MyraOS – My 32-bit operating system in C and ASM (Hack Club project) alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →