Nerves provides tooling and libraries for building small, self-contained software images using the rock-solid Erlang virtual machine hardware support of Linux, and development experience of Elixir for microprocessor-based embedded systems.
Nerves uses the Linux kernel to support a large variety of hardware.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Portable – runs out-of-the-box on commonly available hardware. Nerves leverages Linux and Buildroot to minimize the effort to port to other devices.
- Lean – uses Elixir Mix releases to include only the code you need. Most Nerves ports provide a Linux kernel and runtime with the basics so that you build up rather than trim down. Firmware sizes start in the 20-30 MB range.
- Reliable – uses the Erlang runtime system, known for being distributed, fault-tolerant, soft real-time, and highly available. Nerves firmware is immutable so you know exactly what software is running.
- Secure – avoid hidden bugs and vulnerabilities with Nerves’ secure opt-in approach to building. Nerves starts minimal and provides regular security updates to Erlang and Linux components. SBOM information is available via the Buildroot integration.
- Efficient – use Erlang and Elixir’s I/O optimizations such as IOData that minimize data copies over the entire stack.
- Extensible – one part of the vibrant Elixir ecosystem. Take advantage of other Elixir projects like Phoenix, Nx, Livebook and more in embedded projects.
Website: nerves-project.org
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Nerves Project developers
License: Apache License 2.0
Nerves is written in Elixir. Learn Elixir with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Elixir Web Frameworks | |
|---|---|
| Phoenix | Rock-solid web framework that improves the Model-View-Controller architecture |
| Nerves | Craft and deploy bulletproof embedded software |
| Plug | Specification and conveniences for composable modules between web applications |
| ALF | Flow-based application layer framework |
| Maru | REST-like API framework for Elixir inspired by grape |
| Kitto | Framework to create dashboards |
| Sugar | Modular web framework |
| Dynamo | Experimental web framework |
| Weber | MVC web framework |
| Trot | Web micro-framework based on Plug and Cowboy |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |