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Tock Alternatives
Similar projects and alternatives to tock
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Stream
Stream - Scalable APIs for Chat, Feeds, Moderation, & Video. Stream helps developers build engaging apps that scale to millions with performant and flexible Chat, Feeds, Moderation, and Video APIs and SDKs powered by a global edge network and enterprise-grade infrastructure.
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InfluxDB
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads. InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
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awesome-embedded-rust
Curated list of resources for Embedded and Low-level development in the Rust programming language
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pebble
This is the latest version of the internal repository from Pebble Technology providing the software to run on Pebble watches. Proprietary source code has been removed from this repository and it will not compile as-is. This is for information only. (by google)
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image-gallery
A functional demo app for the Invisible Screen. Use this as a reference to build your own apps.
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a better tock alternative or higher similarity.
tock discussion
tock reviews and mentions
Posts with mentions or reviews of tock. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2025-01-27.
- Eskil Steenberg – I've had it with the security orthodoxy. – BSC 2025 [video]
This whole rant is uninformed & it seems like the author is completely ignorant of anything happening outside his well.
But I'll bite the Rust rant anyway.
> Where's your SSL?
Right here: https://www.memorysafety.org/blog/rustls-server-perf/
It's an order of magnitude faster than OpenSSL, and almost double the speed of BoringSSL.
> Where's your operating system?
There are lots of OSes written in Rust, but nobody expects them to replace a well-established piece of software like Linux. That's why it's shining in the embedded sector, with stuff such as Tock: https://github.com/tock/tock, or many, many other OSes available today. Oxide Computers uses Rust, Volvo writes a lot of their systems in Rust. I also know a few unnamed MIC companies in Turkey using Rust for their software. Anduril also uses Rust.
Rust also runs the Internet, Cloudflare is primarily Rust and AWS is one of the biggest users of Rust. So many more examples but these are the biggest.
Half my environment is Rust: Helix/Zed my editors, my version control system (jj), my shell (nushell), my Window Manager (niri), the build system I'm working on in Rust to build it all, Firefox which is partially Rust, and I actually enjoy using these greatly, because they're fast, well designed and secure.
Has the author written anything in his life that's not games or toys?
- Pebble smartwatch firmware released as open-source
TL;DR: No. Maybe? Depends.
It's probably reasonable to make a distinction between "Real Time" desktop/server OS (on CPUs) vs "Real Time" embedded hardware OS (on MCUs).
(Even aside from any hard-/soft- real time distinction.)
On the embedded side, in addition to FreeRTOS (upon which Pebble OS is built), I'm aware of others with reasonably high profile such as:
* Zephyr (Linux Foundation, C): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(operating_system)
* NuttX (Apache Software Foundation, C & C++): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuttX
In addition, there's also some "up & coming" Rust language projects which fall somewhere along the "framework" to "OS" spectrum (in part, via https://arewertosyet.com):
* Tock: https://github.com/tock/tock
* Embassy: https://github.com/embassy-rs/embassy
* Hubris: https://hubris.oxide.computer
On the desktop side, I seem to recall in the past, OS such as BeOS & QNX have been presented as a possible future for real time desktop OS that hasn't arrived.
As someone else already mentioned, PREEMPT_RT being merged for Linux is a recent development somewhat in this space which could have impact on both desktop & "embedded" situations but suitability varies dependent on, say, whether you're wanting to use it for audio production versus controlling some 10 tonne robot operating next to humans.
Hope this at least goes some way to answering your question. :)
- A secure embedded operating system for microcontrollers
- OxidOS Automotive
Hi! This is Daniel from OxidOS Automotive (stating this for disclaimer purposes).
Yes, our OS is based on TockOS, and our CEO (Alex Radovici) is #7 in the contributors list (https://github.com/tock/tock/graphs/contributors), with other colleagues contributing in the past years.
- What is the best library to write a SCADA-like application for web?
- Safety vs. Performance. A case study of C, C++ and Rust sort implementations
I'm definitely not the best person to answer this, but honestly it's not bad. Here's an example of a moderately complex peripheral, the cortex-m MPU, and how one rust OS handles it:
https://github.com/tock/tock/blob/3a0527d586702b8ae8cb242391...
Reads and writes turn into volatile reads, so everything works out under the hood. You get the benefits of everything having good names, declared sizes, and proper typing on your register accesses. You can extend that to bit accesses as well.
Rust still has a few areas it isn't competitive in, like your hyper limited or obscure chips (e.g. 8051s, XAP), mature tooling around formal methods, and a certification story for safety critical code. People are working on these latter two issues (e.g. ferrocene) and supposedly very close to public delivery, but you know how slow the industry is to adopt new things even then.
- Ask HN: Any Hardware Startups Here?
- Real-Time Operating Systems 101: Basics for Efficient Computing
There's Tock (https://www.tockos.org/), which is written in Rust (with sprinkles of assembly).
- Unwinding the Stack the Hard Way
Yeah, and I like I mentioned in the earlier comment, omitting the frame pointer reduces code size by 10% on RISC-V targets, which is huge when dealing with embedded flash: https://github.com/tock/tock/pull/1660
- Where are the C Alternatives?
- A note from our sponsor - InfluxDB www.influxdata.com | 24 Dec 2025
Stats
Basic tock repo stats
35
6,123
9.9
6 days ago
tock/tock is an open source project licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0 or later which is an OSI approved license.
The primary programming language of tock is Rust.
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