ARM has recently made a significant announcement regarding the future of the Mbed development environment. The company has revealed that the Mbed platform and operating system will reach end of life in July 2026. This means that the Mbed website will be archived, and users will no longer be able to build projects using the online tools provided by ARM.
While the device software, Mbed OS, will remain open source and publicly available, ARM has stated that it will no longer be actively maintained by the company. Despite this decision, the Mbed TLS project will continue to be supported as part of the TrustedFirmware community project. Additionally, a community fork of the Mbed operating system, known as Mbed CE, is currently in active development.
Since its inception in 2009, Mbed has been a widely popular project among professional developers, educational users, and the maker community. It has enabled the creation, security, deployment, and updating of thousands of applications on ARM-based hardware developed by partners and contributors. However, ARM has chosen to redirect its focus towards its CMSIS tools and a suite of embedded and IoT development tools for both professional and academic use.
ARM has advised that no new commercial projects should be initiated using Mbed. Existing commercial projects are encouraged to explore alternative frameworks and begin the process of migrating code and other data from Mbed.com to other platforms. An export tool is available in user accounts to facilitate this transition.
Looking ahead, ARM believes that projects such as micro:bit, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi can thrive within the broader ecosystem without direct support from the company. While ARM remains committed to investing in IoT development by emphasizing standards, tools, and educational content, it suggests that educational institutions start considering a shift away from Mbed as a platform for teaching embedded development.
For those seeking a free-to-use embedded development environment, ARM recommends the Keil MDK v6 Community Edition. This tool seamlessly integrates with the CMSIS standard, CMSIS RTX RTOS, as well as FreeRTOS and Zephyr, providing a robust alternative for developers transitioning away from Mbed. More information can be found at keil.arm.com.