ESP8266 Community Forum

It appears that there are three SDKs that are available for use with the ESP8266 at the moment:
> ESP IOT RTOS SDK
> Official SDK (esp_iot_sdk_v0.9.5_15_01_23)
> ESP Open SDK

So, from a users perspective which one is the "best" (considering documentation, stability, support, performance)? And, what are the differences between each of the SDKs?

I've read that the APIs of the "esp_iot_rtos_sdk" are same as "esp_iot_sdk", but what are the advantages/disadvantages of one or the other? I'm also not completely sure about the two modes that available when building the esp-open-sdk, what are the implications of choosing mode 1 i.e. having a non-standalone toolchain/sdk?

So many choices, so little time...

esp-open-sdk is more of a toolchain than an sdk, essentially you build a toolchain and import the official sdk. you can also compile apps for the rtos sdk using it, or nodemcu firmware etc.

it definitely works better than the toolchains from espressif (e.g. the lubuntu vm or xp vm or even the xtensa tarball).