ESP-IDF

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Welcome to ESP-IDF

ESP-IDF — the Espressif IoT Development Framework — is our official, production-grade SDK for every Espressif SoC. Whether you are prototyping a sensor node, shipping a Matter-certified product, or building an edge device with AI, ESP-IDF gives you drivers, networking stacks, security features, and build tooling in one place so you can focus on your application.

Why ESP-IDF

One framework, many chips. Use the same APIs, build system, and workflow across all Espressif SoC series. Switch to a newly-released chip to get the latest features, or to a cost-effective one to meet your BOM budget — all without changing your application code.

Built for real products. ESP-IDF powers applications running on over a billion ESP chips shipped worldwide. Our release roadmap includes regular feature and bugfix releases.

Open source on GitHub. Inspect the code and tap into a global community of contributors and commercial partners.

SoCs in the latest release

The latest ESP-IDF release — supports the full Espressif lineup below—pick the radio, performance, and peripherals that fit your design, and stay on one framework as your product evolves.

For the authoritative, up-to-date list (including new chips and targets), see the ESP-IDF Compatibility — Detailed ESP-IDF Support for Chip Revisions.

New chip support status

Track the support status of newly introduced Espressif chips in ESP-IDF and related frameworks, with links to detailed per-chip status pages and rollout updates.

Hardware Support

Browse Espressif hardware resources, including DevKits, hardware design guidelines, the official KiCad library, and support status pages for new chips across SDKs and frameworks.

Install ESP-IDF

The fastest path on Windows, macOS, and Linux is the ESP-IDF Installer Manager (EIM). It installs the toolchains, Python environment, and ESP-IDF itself so you can run idf.py build without manual dependency hunting.

Download

Get GUI installers, portable binaries, and release bundles from the EIM downloads page, or install EIM with your platform package manager:

# Install GUI version
winget install Espressif.EIM
# Install CLI version only
winget install Espressif.EIM-CLI

# First add the EIM tap
brew tap espressif/eim
# Install GUI version
brew install --cask eim-gui
# Or install CLI version only
brew install eim

# Add the EIM APT repository
echo "deb [trusted=yes] https://dl.espressif.com/dl/eim/apt/ stable main" | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/espressif.list
# Update package lists
sudo apt update
# Install CLI version
sudo apt install eim-cli
# Or install GUI version
sudo apt install eim

# Download and install the RPM repository configuration
sudo dnf install https://dl.espressif.com/dl/eim/rpm/eim-repo-latest.noarch.rpm
# Install CLI version
sudo dnf install eim-cli
# Or install GUI version
sudo dnf install eim

After EIM finishes, you have CMake-based projects, Xtensa and RISC-V toolchains, and the same idf.py workflow on every supported OS.

IDEs and editors

Use the tools you already know. ESP-IDF is CMake-first, so any editor with solid CMake and C/C++ support works well. For the most integrated experience, start here:

• Visual Studio Code — Official ESP-IDF extension: setup, flash, monitor, and SDK configuration from the editor
• Eclipse — ESP-IDF plug-in for Eclipse users
• CLion — Open the project as a CMake profile and use CLion’s navigation and debugging

To know more about: Documentation

Everything you need to go from “blink” to production:

• ESP-IDF Programming Guide — Getting started, API reference, and guides
• ESP-IDF on GitHub — Source, issues, and contributions
• Release notes — What changed in each version
• Espressif SoCs — Browse the full SoC portfolio and compare families
• Espressif Documentation — Central hub for Espressif technical documentation across products
• Espressif Products — Modules, dev kits, and product-level information

AI-assisted development (MCP)

Connect ESP-IDF to assistants and automation through Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers:

• ESP-IDF Tools Local MCP Server (ESP-IDF v6.0+) — Exposes your project to compatible assistants; run with eim run "idf.py mcp-server" (e.g. VS Code Copilot, Cursor)
• Espressif Documentation MCP Server — Lets tools query current Espressif documentation, including ESP-IDF, for answers grounded in published docs

ESP Component Registry

Skip boilerplate and pull in maintained, versioned building blocks from the official ESP Component Registry—drivers, protocols, UI helpers, cloud connectors, and more. Add a dependency without vendoring entire trees:

idf.py add-dependency "namespace/component_name"

Browse the full catalog at components.espressif.com.

Popular right now

A snapshot of widely used components from the registry:

Frameworks for specialized stacks

When your product needs more than “vanilla” firmware, these Espressif frameworks sit on top of ESP-IDF and accelerate common domains:

• ESP-BROOKESIA — UI toolkit for HMIs and products with displays
• ESP-DSP — Optimized digital signal processing for audio, control, and analytics on-chip
• ESP-WHO — Vision pipeline building blocks for ESP32-class devices with a camera
• ESP-Matter — Matter connectivity aligned with Espressif silicon and certification paths
• ESP-Zigbee-SDK — Zigbee stack for IEEE 802.15.4–capable chips such as ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2

Follow us on the community side

Join other ESP32 and ESP-IDF developers for questions, project showcases, and informal support:

• ESP32.com forum — Official Espressif community forum
• r/esp32 on Reddit — News, builds, and discussion
• Espressif Discord — Real-time chat with the community

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