Best IoT Operating Systems for Cloud
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Compare the Top IoT Operating Systems for Cloud as of June 2025
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What are IoT Operating Systems for Cloud?
IoT operating systems (OS) are specialized software platforms designed to run on Internet of Things (IoT) devices, providing the necessary functionality for resource management, communication, and real-time processing. These operating systems are optimized for low power consumption, small memory footprints, and efficient processing, allowing IoT devices to operate in environments with limited resources. IoT operating systems typically offer features like device control, sensor management, connectivity protocols, and security to ensure that IoT devices perform reliably and securely. They are used in a variety of IoT applications, such as smart home devices, wearables, industrial machinery, and automotive systems. Compare and read user reviews of the best IoT Operating Systems for Cloud currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Mongoose OS
Cesanta
Mongoose OS is open source and comes in two editions: Community and Enterprise. Reliable Over-The-Air updates Secure device provisioning Remote management. Trusted, field-tested, proven performance. Open source under Apache 2.0 license. Commercial licensing & support are available. integrated into thousands of commercial products deployed to hundreds of millions of devices in production environments. Mongoose OS is Google Cloud IoT Core Partner. Microsoft Azure IoT recommends Mongoose OS for OTA, automatic device management and deploying firmware updates at scale. 'Microsoft Developer: The IoT Show' demonstrates on how to update the firmware of devices running Mongoose OS over-the-air with The Azure IoT Hub Automatic Device Management. Google Cloud IoT Core uses MQTT for communication.Starting Price: $0.89 per unit -
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FreeRTOS
FreeRTOS
Developed in partnership with the world’s leading chip companies over a 15-year period, and now downloaded every 170 seconds, FreeRTOS is a market-leading real-time operating system (RTOS) for microcontrollers and small microprocessors. Distributed freely under the MIT open source license, FreeRTOS includes a kernel and a growing set of IoT libraries suitable for use across all industry sectors. FreeRTOS is built with an emphasis on reliability and ease of use. With proven robustness, tiny footprint, and wide device support, the FreeRTOS kernel is trusted by world-leading companies as the de facto standard for microcontrollers and small microprocessors. With detailed pre-configured demos and Internet of Things (IoT) reference integrations, there is no need to determine how to setup a project. Quickly download, compile, and get to market faster. Our partner ecosystem provides a breadth of options including community contributions and professional support. -
3
BlackBerry QNX
BlackBerry QNX
Launch your critical embedded systems faster with our commercial RTOS, development tools and services. BlackBerry QNX delivers a time-tested real-time operating system (RTOS), hypervisor, and other embedded software to help make you successful. We are the embedded OS of choice for ventilators, train controls, factory automation systems, medical robots and more. Whether your priority is safety certification, security or performance, our software, tools and services can help you build more reliable products. If you’re looking to increase security or safety, or you want to streamline your cross-platform development process, we can help. We can bring your plans to life with an RTOS and hypervisor purpose-built for embedded systems, including pre-certified product variants. Our modular microkernel architecture delivers better reliability and saves duplication of OS development effort across multiple products. -
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Contiki-NG
Contiki-NG
Contiki-NG is an open-source, cross-platform operating system for Next-Generation IoT devices. It focuses on dependable (secure and reliable) low-power communication and standard protocols, such as IPv6/6LoWPAN, 6TiSCH, RPL, and CoAP. Contiki-NG comes with extensive documentation, tutorials, a roadmap, release cycle, and well-defined development flow for smooth integration of community contributions. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, Contiki-NG sources are distributed under the terms of the 3-clause BSD license. This license gives everyone the right to use and distribute the code, either in binary or source code format, as long as the copyright license is retained in the source code.Starting Price: $4 per user per month -
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RT-Thread
RT-Thread
Welcome to the RT-Thread initiative on SourceForge! RT-Thread is a community-led, open-source Real-Time Operating System. It boasts an extensive feature set, compatibility with over 600 ready-to-use software packages and a broad spectrum of components, and supports all mainstream chip architectures. It also includes a proprietary IDE, the RT-Thread Studio, to assist engineers in quickly embarking on embedded and IoT development. Designed with scalability in mind, RT-Thread is a flexible option for various IoT applications, thanks to its Nano version tailored for resource-limited applications. We invite you to join us on this thrilling journey and help shape the future of IoT and RTOS! -
6
LynxOS
Lynx Software Technologies
LynxOS has been deployed in millions of embedded devices and has operated reliably for 30+ years across multiple safety and security-critical embedded markets. It is a tried and true approach for hosting applications on a Unix-like OS model wherein all resources and application services are centrally managed by a common kernel and is best-suited for working with hardware architectures that predate virtualization. We want our customers to buy what they need, and only what they need. Real-time operating systems can provide a tremendous amount of value, but they are not required for every embedded system design. For a more complete listing of our RTOS-related resources, visit our Embedded Systems Learning Center, which is filled with helpful material for making software purchase decisions as you design or update your system and consider which real-time platform vendor is right for you. -
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MindSphere
Siemens
MindSphere® is the leading industrial IoT as a service solution. Using advanced analytics and AI, MindSphere powers IoT solutions from the edge to the cloud with data from connected products, plants and systems to optimize operations, create better quality products and deploy new business models. Built on the Mendix application platform, MindSphere empowers customers, partners and the Siemens organization to quickly build and integrate personalized IoT applications. Our team of experts is happy to answer your questions and help you get started with MindSphere. Connect assets and upload data to the cloud . Collect, monitor, and analyze data in real-time. Take advantage of apps and solutions that solve real problems. Develop apps that increase the business value of your data. Make use of an open environment for development and operations. -
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TizenRT
Tizen
Tizen is an open and flexible operating system built from the ground up to address the needs of all stakeholders of the mobile and connected device ecosystem, including device manufacturers, mobile operators, application developers and independent software vendors (ISVs). Tizen platform is commercialized on smart TVs, smartphones, wearable devices (Gear S, Gear Fit), and smart home appliances. However, low-end and low-cost IoT devices, such as home appliances without display and wearable bands with a small LCD, have received less attention. The objective of TizenRT is to extend the Tizen platform device coverage to these kind of low-end devices. -
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Apache Mynewt
Apache
Meet your application’s demands from a choice of open source networking stacks e.g. Bluetooth Low Energy 5, Bluetooth Mesh, Wi-Fi, LoRaWAN, and more. Ensure security is built into the code as well as lifecycle management for your product. Ready your IoT network of billions for remote monitoring, troubleshooting, management, and upgrade. Compose, fine-tune, and build your image within hours or even minutes. -
10
Huawei LiteOS
Huawei
Huawei LiteOS is an IoT-oriented software platform integrating an IoT operating system and middleware. It is lightweight, with a kernel size of under 10 KB, and consumes very little power — it can run on an AA battery for up to five years! It also allows for fast startup and connectivity and is very secure. These capabilities make Huawei LiteOS a simple yet powerful one-stop software platform for developers, lowering barriers to entry for development and shortening time to market. Huawei LiteOS provides a unified open-source API that can be used in IoT domains as diverse as smart homes, wearables, Internet of Vehicles (IoV), and intelligent manufacturing. Huawei LiteOS enables an open IoT ecosystem, helping partners to quickly develop IoT products and accelerate IoT development. -
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MicroPython
MicroPython
The MicroPython pyboard is a compact electronic circuit board that runs MicroPython on the bare metal, giving you a low-level Python operating system that can be used to control all kinds of electronic projects. MicroPython is packed full of advanced features such as an interactive prompt, arbitrary precision integers, closures, list comprehension, generators, exception handling and more. Yet it is compact enough to fit and run within just 256k of code space and 16k of RAM. MicroPython aims to be as compatible with normal Python as possible to allow you to transfer code with ease from the desktop to a microcontroller or embedded system. -
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TinyOS
TinyOS
TinyOS is an open source, BSD-licensed operating system designed for low-power wireless devices, such as those used in sensor networks, ubiquitous computing, personal area networks, smart buildings, and smart meters. A worldwide community from academia and industry use, develop, and support the operating system as well as its associated tools, averaging 35,000 downloads a year. The transition to hosting at GitHub is now complete. Part of this transition includes slowly retiring TinyOS development mailing lists for bug tracking and issues to using the GitHub trackers. Thanks to all of the developers who are now improving TinyOS and requesting pulls! -
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Amazon FreeRTOS
Amazon
FreeRTOS is an open source, real-time operating system for microcontrollers that makes small, low-power edge devices easy to program, deploy, secure, connect, and manage. Distributed freely under the MIT open source license, FreeRTOS includes a kernel and a growing set of software libraries suitable for use across industry sectors and applications. This includes securely connecting your small, low-power devices to AWS Cloud services like AWS IoT Core or to more powerful edge devices running AWS IoT Greengrass. FreeRTOS is built with an emphasis on reliability and ease of use, and offers the predictability of long term support releases. A microcontroller contains a simple, resource-constrained processor that can be found in many devices, including appliances, sensors, fitness trackers, industrial automation, and automobiles. -
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Nucleus RTOS
Siemens Digital Industries Software
Nucleus® RTOS enables system developers to address the complex requirements demanded by today’s advanced embedded designs. Nucleus brings together kernel-rich functionality and tooling features ideal for applications where a scalable footprint, connectivity, security, power management, and deterministic performance are essential. Nucleus RTOS is a proven, reliable, and fully optimized RTOS. Nucleus has been successfully deployed in highly demanding markets with rigorous safety and security requirements such as industrial systems, medical devices, airborne systems, automotive and more. Stable deterministic kernel with a small memory footprint. A lightweight process model for optimized memory partitioning. Dynamically load and unload processes for greater modularity of applications. -
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Device OS
Particle
Device OS features an easy-to-use programming framework to help you write applications that run on your devices. With one line of code you'll be securely sending messages to the web. There are four main communication primitives you use to talk to the web through the Device Cloud. The only IoT platform where hardware, software, connectivity and cloud infrastructure are fully integrated out-of-the-box, so that you can deliver OTA updates of any scale quickly and safely. Setting up is easy so that you can push remote updates in minutes, no custom integrations required. Our unique Intelligent Firmware Release feature has built in context awareness, which makes it possible to complete a fleet-wide OTA firmware update in minutes. Particle offers both single device and fleet-wide OTA capabilities that seamlessly scale along with your fleet, from prototype to production. -
16
Micrium OS
Silicon Labs
At the heart of any embedded OS is a kernel, which provides vital task scheduling and multi-tasking services to ensure that the timing requirements of your application code can be met, even as you regularly update and expand that code with new features. Micrium OS is more than a kernel, though, providing a number of additional modules to help you meet your project’s needs. Micrium OS is provided entirely free of charge for deployment on Silicon Labs EFM32 and EFR32 devices! You can begin adding Micrium’s professional-quality components to your projects today without payment of any licensing fees. -
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We collaborate with open-source and commercial partners to provide MIPS support for many of the popular Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and the new generation of IoT specific Operating Systems. In addition, we have developed the MIPS Embedded Operating System (MEOS) with Virtualization extensions that targets deeply embedded applications and the IoT space. MEOS is MIPS’ in-house real-time operating system (RTOS). Being in-house, it is always the first to support new cores and architecture features. Version 3.1 of MEOS includes a virtualization library to extend MEOS into a hypervisor for use on MIPS cores which implement the MIPS Virtualization module. Where possible we will assist in the development open-source real-time/IoT operating systems through the donation of engineering resource or the supply of development hardware and tools.
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18
RIOT
RIOT
RIOT powers the Internet of Things like Linux powers the Internet. RIOT is a free, open source operating system developed by a grassroots community gathering companies, academia, and hobbyists, distributed all around the world. RIOT supports most low-power IoT devices, microcontroller architectures (32-bit, 16-bit, 8-bit), and external devices. RIOT aims to implement all relevant open standards supporting an Internet of Things that is connected, secure, durable & privacy-friendly. RIOT supports DTLS transport layer security, IEEE 802.15.4 encryption, Secure Firmware Updates (SUIT), multiple cryptographic packages, and crypto secure elements. RIOT is modular to adapt to application needs. We aim to support all common network technologies and Internet standards. RIOT is open to new developments and often an early adaptor in networking. -
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Fuschia OS
Fuschia
Fuchsia is a new open source operating system created at Google that is currently under active development. We are building Fuchsia from the kernel up to meet the needs of today’s growing ecosystem of connected devices. Fuchsia is still evolving rapidly, but the underlying principles and values of the system have remained relatively constant throughout the project. The core architectural principles guiding Fuchsia’s design and development are: secure, updatable, inclusive, and pragmatic. A core set of architectural principles - secure, updatable, inclusive, pragmatic - guides Fuchsia's design and development. As an inclusive, open source community, Fuchsia welcomes high-quality, well-tested contributions from all. While there are frameworks proposed to guide its design, Fuchsia is a work in progress. With community contributions and ongoing development, Fuchsia will change over time to meet the evolving needs of developers, manufacturers, and consumers. -
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Zephyr
Zephyr
From simple embedded environmental sensors and LED wearables to sophisticated embedded controllers, smart watches, and IoT wireless applications. Implements configurable architecture-specific stack-overflow protection, kernel object and device driver permission tracking, and thread isolation with thread-level memory protection on x86, ARC, and ARM architectures, userspace, and memory domains. For platforms without MMU/MPU and memory constrained devices, supports combining application-specific code with a custom kernel to create a monolithic image that gets loaded and executed on a system’s hardware. Both the application code and kernel code execute in a single shared address space. -
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balenaOS
balena
Containers will revolutionize connected devices, and balenaOS is the best way to run them. Made to survive harsh networking conditions and unexpected shutdowns. A minimal Linux with the services needed to run Docker reliably on an embedded device - nothing else. Based on Yocto Linux for easy porting to most capable device types across varied CPU architectures. Actively developed in the open; community participation warmly welcomed. In our quest to build balenaCloud, a platform that brings the tools of modern software development to the world of connected hardware, we started by porting Docker to ARM chips in 2013. We soon realised that we also needed an operating system optimized for the use case: a minimal OS ideal for running containers on embedded devices. -
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Apache NuttX
Apache
NuttX is a real-time operating system (RTOS) with an emphasis on standards compliance and small footprint. Scalable from 8-bit to 32-bit microcontroller environments, the primary governing standards in NuttX are Posix and ANSI standards. Additional standard APIs from Unix and other common RTOS’s (such as VxWorks) are adopted for functionality not available under these standards, or for functionality that is not appropriate for deeply-embedded environments (such as fork()). Apache NuttX is an effort undergoing Incubation at The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), sponsored by the Incubator. Incubation is required of all newly accepted projects until a further review indicates that the infrastructure, communications, and decision making process have stabilized in a manner consistent with other successful ASF projects.
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