Best Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) in South America

VxWorks®, a leading real-time operating platform in the industry, provides all the performance, reliability, safety and security capabilities you need for the most critical infrastructure's embedded computing systems. VxWorks is a preemptive, deterministic RTOS that prioritizes real-time embedded applications. It has low latency and minimaljitter. VxWorks has many security features that address the evolving security threats connected devices face at every stage, from boot-up to operation to data transfer to powered off. VxWorks has been certified to IEC 61508, ISO 26262, and DO-178C safety standards. VxWorks is built on an extensible, future-proof architecture that allows you to quickly respond to changing market demands, customer needs, technological advancements, and preserves your investment.

Developed in collaboration with top chip manufacturers over a span of 15 years, FreeRTOS is now downloaded approximately every 170 seconds and stands as a top-tier real-time operating system (RTOS) tailored for microcontrollers and small microprocessors. Available at no cost under the MIT open source license, FreeRTOS encompasses a kernel along with an expanding collection of IoT libraries that cater to various industries. Prioritizing reliability and user-friendliness, FreeRTOS is renowned for its proven durability, minimal footprint, and extensive device compatibility, making it the go-to standard for microcontroller and small microprocessor applications among leading global enterprises. With a wealth of pre-configured demos and IoT reference integrations readily available, users can easily set up their projects without any hassle. This streamlined process allows for rapid downloading, compiling, and quicker market entry. Furthermore, the ecosystem of partners offers a diverse range of options, including both community-driven contributions and professional support, ensuring that users have access to the resources they need for success. As technology continues to evolve, FreeRTOS remains committed to adapting and enhancing its offerings to meet the ever-changing demands of the industry.

Arm Mbed OS is an open-source operating system tailored for IoT applications, providing all the essential tools for creating IoT devices. This robust OS is equipped to support smart and connected products built on Arm Cortex-M architecture, offering features such as machine learning, secure connectivity stacks, an RTOS kernel, and drivers for various sensors and I/O devices. Specifically designed for the Internet of Things, Arm Mbed OS integrates capabilities in connectivity, machine learning, networking, and security, complemented by a wealth of software libraries, development boards, tutorials, and practical examples. It fosters collaboration across a vast ecosystem, supporting over 70 partners in silicon, modules, cloud services, and OEMs, thereby enhancing choices for developers. By leveraging the Mbed OS API, developers can maintain clean, portable, and straightforward application code while benefiting from advanced security, communication, and machine learning functionalities. This cohesive solution ultimately streamlines the development process, significantly lowering costs, minimizing time investment, and reducing associated risks. Furthermore, Mbed OS empowers innovation, enabling developers to rapidly prototype and deploy IoT solutions with confidence.

embOS stands as a priority-driven real-time operating system (RTOS) that serves as a robust foundation for embedding applications, with ongoing development since its inception in 1992. It supports all major processor architectures, compilers, and development environments, having found its way into billions of devices across diverse sectors. Engineers have consistently favored embOS in the embedded market due to its reliability and user-friendly nature. The system ensures 100% deterministic real-time performance for all types of embedded devices, making it a trusted choice. Highly portable and fully source-compatible across different platforms, embOS allows for straightforward application migration between various cores. Developers can create tasks with ease and facilitate secure communication among them through mechanisms such as semaphores, mailboxes, and events. Furthermore, embOS offers a free version for non-commercial applications, such as educational and evaluative purposes, which comes without any technical restrictions. This accessibility encourages experimentation and innovation in the field of embedded systems.

RT-Thread, short for Real Time-Thread, is an embedded real-time multi-threaded operating system. It has been designed to support multi-tasking, allowing multiple tasks to run simultaneously. Although a processor core can only run one task at a time, RT-Thread executes every task quickly and switches between them rapidly according to priority, creating the illusion of simultaneous task execution. RT-Thread is mainly written in the C programming language, making it easy to understand and port. It applies object-oriented programming methods to real-time system design, resulting in elegant, structured, modular, and highly customizable code. The system comes in a few varieties. The NANO version is a minimal kernel that requires only 3KB of flash and 1.2KB of RAM. For resource-rich IoT devices, RT-Thread can use an online software package management tool, together with system configuration tools, to achieve an intuitive and rapid modular design.

LynxOS has been utilized in countless embedded devices, demonstrating dependable performance for over three decades in various safety and security-sensitive markets. This operating system offers a proven method for running applications within a Unix-like environment, where a unified kernel manages all resources and application services, making it particularly effective for hardware designs that were developed before the advent of virtualization. We aim to ensure our customers purchase only what is necessary for their specific needs. While real-time operating systems (RTOS) can deliver significant advantages, they are not essential for every embedded system configuration. For a more extensive overview of our resources related to RTOS, we invite you to explore our Embedded Systems Learning Center, which provides valuable information to assist you in making informed software purchasing choices as you design or enhance your system and evaluate potential real-time platform vendors. Moreover, this center is a great resource to help you understand the trade-offs and benefits associated with various embedded system approaches.

The SCIOPTA architecture is meticulously crafted to ensure outstanding real-time performance while maintaining a compact size. Its internal data structures, memory management, interprocess communication, and time management are all finely tuned for efficiency. Functioning as a pre-emptive real-time kernel, SCIOPTA allows interrupts to be handled at any moment, even during kernel execution. This operating system relies on a message-based model, providing a robust array of system calls for effective resource management. With standardized processes and interprocess communication protocols, SCIOPTA promotes clear system designs that are both easy to implement and maintain. The well-defined messaging system allows processes to communicate seamlessly and enables the grouping of processes into modules, making SCIOPTA particularly advantageous for collaborative efforts in large projects. The streamlined design significantly accelerates time-to-market, enhancing overall project efficiency. Moreover, the direct message passing capability between processes facilitates not only interprocess communication but also synchronization, further optimizing system performance.

The Keil RTX is a deterministic, royalty-free real-time operating system tailored for ARM and Cortex-M devices, enabling the development of applications that can handle multiple tasks concurrently, resulting in more organized and maintainable code. This RTOS comes with source code, allowing for greater flexibility in programming. While it is feasible to implement real-time applications without an RTOS by using a Super-loop to run one or more functions, doing so can lead to various challenges related to scheduling, maintenance, and timing, all of which are efficiently managed by the Keil RTX. For those interested in understanding the benefits of an RTOS compared to a Super-loop approach, a detailed comparison highlights the advantages of adopting an RTOS. Additionally, Keil RTX offers high-speed real-time operations with minimal interrupt latency and a compact footprint suitable for resource-limited systems. It supports an unlimited number of tasks, each capable of having up to 254 levels of priority, as well as an infinite number of mailboxes, semaphores, mutexes, and timers, making it an ideal choice for applications requiring multithreading and thread-safe functionality. Overall, the Keil RTX provides developers with a powerful toolset for creating efficient and robust real-time applications.

Since its inception in 1980, QNX has been the choice of thousands of enterprises seeking to implement real-time operating systems that deliver an optimal blend of performance, security, and reliability for their mission-critical operations. Central to QNX's innovation is the QNX Neutrino® Real-time Operating System (RTOS), which is a comprehensive solution that facilitates the development of next-generation products across various sectors where dependability is paramount, such as automotive, healthcare devices, robotics, transportation, and industrial embedded environments. Thanks to its microkernel architecture, QNX ensures that a failure in one component does not disrupt the operation of others or compromise the kernel, as the malfunctioning part can be simply halted and restarted without negatively impacting the overall system. The QNX Neutrino RTOS stands out by providing the determinism unique to real-time operating systems, employing methods like adaptive partitioning to ensure that essential processes receive the necessary processing cycles to perform their tasks promptly, all while sustaining the performance expectations of intricate embedded systems. This combination of features makes QNX Neutrino RTOS a preferred choice for developers looking to create robust and resilient applications. As technology continues to evolve, the adaptability of QNX's offerings ensures that they remain at the forefront of real-time operating system solutions.

Deos™, developed by DDC-I, is a safety-critical real-time operating system (RTOS) that has been rigorously verified according to DO-178C/ED-12C Design Assurance Level A (DAL A) standards specifically for avionics applications. This RTOS supports ARINC 653 APEX and rate monotonic scheduling (RMS), and it is designed to meet the FACE Safety Base Profile requirements. Since its initial verification by Transport Canada in 1998, it has been a trusted solution in the aviation industry, with its certification allowing it to operate in tens of thousands of aircraft. Over the past two decades, Deos has adapted and evolved to incorporate new processors and features, demonstrating its flexibility and resilience. It has also undergone successful audits by a range of global certification authorities, including the FAA, ENAC, JAA, EASA, and CAAC, as well as by designated engineering representatives from various airframe and avionics suppliers, ensuring its continued compliance with industry standards. Its proven track record and ongoing development make it a pivotal component in modern aviation safety systems.

INTEGRITY employs hardware memory protection to effectively isolate and safeguard embedded applications. By utilizing secure partitions, it ensures that every task has the necessary resources to operate correctly while simultaneously shielding the operating system and user tasks from erroneous and harmful code, which encompasses threats like denial-of-service attacks, worms, and Trojan horses. To facilitate developers in expediting their product creation, Green Hills Software provides a comprehensive suite of middleware that has been integrated and validated for use with INTEGRITY, featuring options like FFS, FAT, NFS, and journaling file systems, alongside both IPv4 and IPv6 host and routing networking stacks, as well as a FIPS 140-2 certified Suite B embedded encryption library, among other tools. Notably, each middleware package has undergone pre-integration and rigorous testing to ensure it operates smoothly with INTEGRITY’s sophisticated RTOS features. Furthermore, Green Hills Software also presents tailored platforms for various industries, which encompass a fully integrated ecosystem that includes the INTEGRITY RTOS along with essential development tools, aiming to streamline the development process even further. This cohesive approach not only boosts efficiency but also enhances the overall security of embedded applications.

The MQX real-time operating system (RTOS) delivers excellent real-time capabilities while maintaining a compact and customizable footprint. This RTOS is seamlessly integrated with NXP's 32-bit MCUs and MPUs and comes with essential device drivers commonly utilized in embedded applications. Designed with a contemporary, component-oriented microkernel architecture, the MQX RTOS allows engineers to tailor features, size, and performance by selectively integrating components, thus adhering to the stringent memory limitations typical of embedded systems. Remarkably, it can be set up to use as little as 8 KB of ROM and 2.5 KB of RAM on the Arm Cortex M4, accommodating the kernel, two task applications, one lightweight semaphore, the interrupt stack, queues, and the memory manager. This configuration ensures a complete RTOS core is available while offering additional optional services as needed. By linking components only when required, the system effectively avoids unnecessary memory bloat from unused functions. Moreover, key components are offered in both standard and lightweight configurations, providing further flexibility regarding size, RAM and ROM usage, and performance options, making it a versatile choice for various applications.

Tizen is a versatile and open-source operating system designed from its inception to meet the diverse requirements of all participants in the mobile and connected device landscape, which encompasses manufacturers, mobile network operators, app developers, and independent software vendors (ISVs). This platform is utilized commercially across various devices, including smart TVs, smartphones, wearable technology like the Gear S and Gear Fit, as well as smart home gadgets. Despite its broad applications, there has been a notable lack of focus on entry-level and budget-friendly IoT devices, such as home appliances that lack displays and wearable bands featuring minimal LCD screens. The aim of TizenRT is to broaden the reach of the Tizen platform to include these types of low-end devices, thereby enhancing its versatility and accommodating a wider array of connected technologies. By doing so, TizenRT hopes to foster innovation and accessibility in the IoT market, ensuring that even the simplest devices can benefit from advanced connectivity.

Huawei LiteOS is a software platform designed specifically for the Internet of Things (IoT), combining an operating system with middleware. With a remarkably small kernel size of less than 10 KB, it operates efficiently on minimal power, capable of lasting up to five years on a single AA battery. Its quick startup time and secure connectivity features further enhance its usability. These attributes position Huawei LiteOS as an effective one-stop solution for developers, facilitating easier entry into the market and expediting product launch timelines. The platform offers a cohesive open-source API applicable across various IoT sectors, including smart homes, wearables, the Internet of Vehicles, and smart manufacturing. By fostering an open IoT ecosystem, Huawei LiteOS empowers partners to innovate swiftly and propel the development of IoT solutions forward. Its versatility and reliability make it an essential tool in the rapidly evolving landscape of IoT technology.

The µ-velOSity RTOS stands out as the most compact option within Green Hills Software's suite of real-time operating systems. Developed as a C library, it is highly adaptable for various target architectures, facilitating easy integration. Its streamlined architecture is closely aligned with the MULTI IDE, making µ-velOSity not only straightforward to learn but also user-friendly. By providing a clear and concise API, it helps to shorten development timelines and enhance the maintainability of products. Consequently, this can lead to cost reductions and faster time-to-market for developers transitioning from standalone or no-OS setups. Thanks to its efficient architecture and small memory footprint, µ-velOSity outperforms many competitors by fitting seamlessly within on-chip memory. This design choice eliminates reliance on off-chip memory, significantly boosting execution speed. Furthermore, the RTOS has been engineered to minimize CPU clock cycles during booting, an essential feature for embedded systems that demand rapid startup times. Additionally, µ-velOSity is exceptionally suited for embedded devices that have strict power consumption constraints, ensuring optimal performance without compromising energy efficiency. In summary, µ-velOSity provides a robust solution for developers seeking a reliable and efficient RTOS for various embedded applications.

OpenWrt is an adaptable GNU/Linux distribution designed specifically for embedded devices, especially wireless routers. In contrast to many other router distributions, OpenWrt is engineered from the ground up to function as a comprehensive and easily customizable operating system for embedded systems. This design philosophy ensures that users can access all essential features without unnecessary bloat, thanks to its reliance on a modern Linux kernel. Rather than offering a single, unchangeable firmware, OpenWrt features a fully writable filesystem accompanied by optional package management. This versatility liberates users from the limitations imposed by manufacturers regarding application choices and configurations, allowing for tailored modifications to meet any specific application needs. Furthermore, for developers, OpenWrt serves as a robust framework that enables the creation of applications without the necessity of building an entire firmware image or distribution around them, thus simplifying the development process. Ultimately, this makes OpenWrt an appealing choice for both end-users and developers alike.

Nucleus® RTOS empowers system developers to meet the intricate demands of modern embedded designs. By combining a robust kernel with essential tooling features, Nucleus is perfectly suited for applications that prioritize scalability, connectivity, security, power efficiency, and reliable deterministic performance. This real-time operating system is not only proven and dependable but also fully optimized for various applications. It has demonstrated success in demanding sectors that require stringent safety and security standards, including industrial systems, medical devices, airborne systems, and automotive applications. Nucleus features a stable deterministic kernel designed to occupy minimal memory, complemented by a lightweight process model that enhances memory partitioning. Additionally, it supports dynamic loading and unloading of processes, allowing for increased modularity in applications, thus providing developers with the flexibility needed for diverse project requirements. This adaptability ensures that Nucleus RTOS can effectively cater to the evolving landscape of embedded technology.

We work alongside both open-source communities and commercial entities to ensure that MIPS is well-supported across many leading Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) as well as emerging IoT-targeted Operating Systems. Furthermore, we have created the MIPS Embedded Operating System (MEOS), which incorporates Virtualization extensions specifically designed for deeply embedded applications and the IoT sector. As MIPS’ proprietary real-time operating system, MEOS is prioritized for updates, ensuring it is the first to incorporate new cores and architectural advancements. The latest release, version 3.1, introduces a virtualization library that transforms MEOS into a hypervisor compatible with MIPS cores featuring the MIPS Virtualization module. Additionally, we are committed to fostering the development of open-source real-time and IoT operating systems by providing engineering resources and supplying necessary development hardware and tools whenever feasible. This collaborative approach not only enhances the ecosystem but also accelerates innovation in the field.

TI-RTOS significantly shortens development timelines by removing the necessity of building fundamental system software functions from the ground up. It ranges from a real-time multitasking kernel known as TI-RTOS Kernel to a comprehensive RTOS solution that encompasses additional middleware, device drivers, and power management features. When combined with TI's ultra low-power microcontrollers, TI-RTOS allows developers to create applications that achieve substantially extended battery life. By offering crucial system software elements that are already tested and integrated, TI-RTOS allows developers to concentrate on making their applications stand out. This platform builds on established, reliable software components to maintain high standards of reliability and quality. Moreover, it is supplemented with thorough documentation, extra examples, and APIs tailored for multitasking development, facilitating integration testing to ensure seamless cooperation among all components. This comprehensive approach effectively streamlines the entire application development process, greatly enhancing the efficiency and performance of the final product.

SAFERTOS® serves as a pre-certified safety Real Time Operating System (RTOS) specifically designed for embedded processors, offering outstanding performance alongside reliable dependability while consuming minimal resources. Customized for your unique processor/compiler combination, SAFERTOS® comes with complete source code and our comprehensive Design Assurance Pack (DAP). This DAP provides full visibility into the entire Design Life Cycle and showcases the exceptional quality of our RTOS solution. Leveraging our significant expertise in Safety Critical design, we have streamlined the certification of SAFERTOS® as part of a product, making the process straightforward and efficient. Developed with a focus on the safety sector, SAFERTOS® incorporates deterministic priority-based scheduling as a core Safety Requirement, ensuring that all efforts are directed towards maintaining predictable behavior throughout its operation. This commitment to reliability not only enhances system performance but also instills confidence in users who rely on such critical applications.

Enea OSE is a powerful and efficient real-time operating system specifically designed for multi-processor environments that demand genuine deterministic real-time performance and exceptional reliability. By streamlining the development process, it improves system reliability and minimizes long-term maintenance expenses across a diverse array of applications, including wireless technology, automotive solutions, medical devices, and telecom infrastructure. Tailored for communication and control systems, Enea OSE excels in delivering high performance alongside stringent real-time requirements. Its widespread implementation spans several sectors, including telecommunications, industrial automation, and embedded systems, ensuring its relevance in modern technology. Notably, the Enea OSE multicore kernel, which has garnered two prestigious awards, combines the user-friendly aspects of Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) with the scalability and deterministic benefits of Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP), all while maintaining the high performance characteristic of bare metal operation. This unique architecture makes Enea OSE a compelling choice for developers seeking reliability and efficiency in their multi-core applications.

PikeOS is a separation kernel-based hypervisor that supports multiple partitions for many operating systems and applications. It allows you to create smart devices for the Internet-of-Things. PikeOS is the best choice for systems that require protection against Cyber-Security attack due to its separation kernel approach. It is widely used in millions of edge and IoT systems. However, it has also been deployed in critical communications infrastructures. PikeOS combines virtualization and real time with unique technologies that have never been seen before. It allows you to move multiple complex embedded circuit boards into one hardware. It is also able to handle new hardware concepts like Big-SoCs that have multiple heterogeneous cores. PikeOS can run on multiple architectures and support processors that have a memory management unit (MMU).

Ranging from basic embedded environmental sensors and LED wearables to advanced embedded controllers, smartwatches, and IoT wireless applications, this system incorporates configurable architecture-specific stack-overflow protection, kernel object and device driver permission tracking, and thread isolation enhanced by thread-level memory protection across x86, ARC, and ARM architectures, as well as userspace and memory domains. For systems lacking MMU/MPU and those limited by memory capacity, it enables the integration of application-specific code with a tailored kernel to form a monolithic image that can be loaded and run on the hardware of the system. In this setup, both the application and kernel code operate within a unified address space, facilitating efficient resource utilization and performance optimization. This design ensures that even resource-constrained environments can effectively leverage complex applications and functionalities.

FreeRTOS is a real-time operating system that is open-source and designed for microcontrollers, simplifying the programming, deployment, security, connectivity, and management of small, power-efficient edge devices. Distributed under the MIT open-source license, it features a kernel along with a variety of software libraries that are applicable across different industries and use cases. These capabilities allow for the secure integration of low-power devices with AWS Cloud services such as AWS IoT Core, as well as with more robust edge devices utilizing AWS IoT Greengrass. Focused on reliability and user-friendliness, FreeRTOS provides the assurance of long-term support releases, catering to the needs of developers. Microcontrollers are fundamental components that consist of simple, resource-limited processors and are utilized in a wide array of devices, including household appliances, environmental sensors, fitness monitors, industrial control systems, and vehicles. The versatility of FreeRTOS makes it an ideal choice for developers looking to implement efficient solutions in the rapidly evolving Internet of Things landscape.

DuinOS is a compact real-time operating system (RTOS) that supports multithreading and is built on the FreeRTOS kernel, designed specifically for boards compatible with Arduino. The project is undergoing a redevelopment using a fresh strategy, currently utilizing FreeRTOS 10 and plans to incorporate ARM Cortex-M technology in the near future; if you are interested in becoming a Beta Tester, please reach out via the project's official website. This initiative aims to enhance the functionality and performance of Arduino platforms significantly.