B4R vs IAR Embedded Workbench

B4R is a free Windows development tool for creating native programs for Arduino-compatible boards, ESP8266, and ESP32. Its plan costs nothing and permits commercial use. The product page lists a modern IDE, connectivity options, and an Arduino–Android Bluetooth Low Energy example. Integrated flashing is available, but integrated debugging is not. Setup requires Arduino IDE v2, Arduino CLI, and Java; OpenJDK 14 is listed when Java is not already installed. Users configure paths to arduino-cli.exe and javac, then choose a board type and serial port in the Board Selector. C source code and generated compiled objects appear in the Objects folder. B4R libraries are open source under the MIT license. The product page links learning resources, example projects, tutorials, and a forum. Anywhere Software directs technical questions to its forum and says email inquiries receive answers within 24 hours. The maker identifies Erel Uziel as founder and CEO and says it has specialized in mobile development since 2005.

IAR Embedded Workbench is an embedded development toolchain with an IDE, optimizing compiler, linker, assembler, and debugger. It supports over 20 architectures, including Arm, RISC-V, 8051, MSP430, AVR, and several Renesas families. The C-SPY debugger provides real-time trace, code coverage, function profiling, and RTOS awareness. IAR C-STAT offers static analysis; IAR C-RUN detects runtime errors and is available for Arm and RX. The toolchain works with VS Code and Eclipse, supports CMake builds, and can integrate with CI/CD pipelines. Supported debug probes include I-jet, I-jet Trace, J-Link, PE Micro, and ST-LINK. Built-in plugins provide RTOS awareness for systems including PX5 RTOS and Zephyr RTOS. The IDE runs natively on Linux and Windows. A 14-day evaluation is available for non-commercial use, but excludes runtime library source code, C-STAT, and MISRA C support and includes limited technical support. Paid subscription pricing is available by request; the subscription combines named-user licenses and build capacity for automated builds and CI/CD.