IDEs and Toolchains

There are many options for developers when it comes to IDEs and compilers. We try to
support you in using the option you are used to, and so provide most of our examples on
multiples IDEs and toolchains. Some of these are free of charge, while others require a
commercial license. You can find out more in the licensing table below.

A free development environment for Nordic customers
The Segger Embedded Studio IDE is now available for free to all Nordic Semiconductor
customers. Support for Segger Embedded Studio has been added to the latest release of the
nRF5 SDK, enabling developers to get going with code examples out of the box.

Segger Embedded Studio
An easy-to-use integrated development environment for C programming, with project
management tools, editor and debugger supporting ARM Cortex devices. Cross-platform
support and flexible compiler options are included.

Keil MDK
A complete software development environment for Cortex™-M, Cortex-R4, ARM7™ and
ARM9™ processor-based devices. MDK-ARM is specifically designed for microcontroller
applications.

IAR Embedded Workbench
An integrated development environment with project management tools and editor. It
includes a highly optimizing C/C++ compiler and the comprehensive C-SPY Debugger with
simulator and hardware debugging support. Its innovative Power Debugging technology
enables testing and tuning for power optimization.

GCC
The GNU G++ compiler for ARM embedded processors is a free, open source compiler with
support for ARM Cortex-M series CPUs. This compiler is supported in the nRF52 SDK.