Black Magic Debug vs Erlang Debugger

Black Magic Debug is a free JTAG/SWD debugger for embedded microcontrollers, aimed at professional developers who want control over build systems and testing environments. Its firmware includes a GDB server that detects targets automatically, without target-specific configuration scripts. Debugging tools include watchpoints, flash memory breakpoints, memory and register examination, and flash programming. The project describes support for ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-A microcontrollers; its listed target platforms also include RISC-V, and remote debugging is supported. The probe connects as a standard USB CDC ACM virtual serial device, with no special driver needed for this interface on Linux or macOS. The debugger works with Linux, macOS, and Windows. The GDB server also supports semihosting and host I/O, Serial Wire Output, and USB DFU firmware upgrades. Documentation includes guides for PlatformIO and STM32CubeIDE. It can also be compiled as a desktop application and used with BMP, ST-Link, FTDI-MPSSE, SEGGER J-Link, or CMSIS-DAP adapters. Desktop-app programming is a little slower, though BMP development may be faster because firmware upload is unnecessary. Getting started requires a Black Magic Probe and a suitable target toolchain.

Erlang Debugger is a graphical interface for debugging and testing Erlang programs. Developers can set line, conditional, and function breakpoints, then attach to a process to step, continue, finish, skip, or stop its execution. The Attach Process window displays variable bindings and allows editing values when they can be represented in the running system. A Monitor window shows interpreted modules and information about processes running interpreted code. Debugger can record interpreted function calls for stack navigation, though recording tail calls uses more memory and can slow execution when many tail-recursive calls are involved. Modules need debug information, for example from compilation with `erlc +debug_info`. Global mode can interpret code on known nodes and display their processes, but the documentation warns that using global mode on multiple network nodes can cause interference. The debugger is listed for Linux, macOS, and Windows, and Erlang/OTP releases from version 18.0 onward use the Apache License 2.0. Debugging has runtime tradeoffs: interpreted code runs slower, each debugged process adds a meta process, and timers or tracing may behave differently.