What’s new in STM32CubeIDE 2.0.0

Hello @mattias norlander ,

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@mattias norlander wrote:

• Our main focus will shift to improving CubeIDE for VS Code.

First published on Nov 19, 2025

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Does this mean that the STM will someday or in the near future abandon the STM32CubeIDE and completely switch to the VS Code?

@Mykola_Levun 

Hope not, it is awful...

@Wood.Andy and @Mykola_Levun thanks for sharing these points.

CubeIDE continues to be offered until our user base consider VS Code as a worthy replacement. I consider this years away.

I would however be very curious to hear your feedbacks as to why VS Code is awful?

• Is it because you tried our early version of the VS Code extensions from ST and it left a sour after taste?
• Or is it a more general comment on VS Code as an editor/framework?

That said, I am super-curious to learn why you despise VS Code. Could you share with me here or in a PM?

I suppose I can make VS Code work by spending the time to find all the add-ins to make it function. I've looked at using it for Python or Arduino but Pycharm was better for Python and Visual Studio + Visual Micro were better for Arduino. 

Like Pycharm and Visual Studio, with an Eclipse based tool you get the whole enchilada.  I guess it would make more sense to me if you said you were going to switch to a Visual Studio based solution. 

After reading the message above about why the tools are getting separated -- I understand the internal conflict and priority problem created by having CubeIDE tied to the MCU release schedule and having the CubeMX bugs associated with the IDE release. 

I see how VS Code can be good for college kids - a new class every 3 or 4 months and using a different IDE all the time can drive you nuts.  So it is a decent IDE you can use for lots of different languages. But it is not the whole enchilada.  

I can understand supporting VS Code with an STM32CubeIDE add in specifically to attract those college kids.  That sounds great.  But the idea of replacing STM32CubeIDE with an add in for VS Code, to me, is like throwing away a racing Porsche to make room in the garage for a nice bicycle.  But maybe you know something about VS Code functionality that I've not discovered.   

@mattias norlander 

Let me add my two cents as well. I started programming STM just 2-3 weeks ago, and I didn't have to choose an IDE because my colleague had already sketched out a project in it. However, after a few debugging runs, I became convinced that Eclipse was still the same dull piece of *** it was 15 years ago when I worked with Code Composer Studio. I started researching alternatives and came across a tutorial on VSCode + STM32 Extension. It turned out that SWV, which I had already configured in CubeIDE, didn't work out of the box, so I had to fiddle with OpenOCD to get the same functionality. It took me several days.

Nevertheless, I was still dissatisfied. VSCode does not offer sufficient interface flexibility, which is very important for an IDE and something I am very used to with Visual Studio. I want to have two sets of spaces for coding and debugging, and I want to compose frames in a way that is convenient for me, not as intended by the authors of VSCode. At the same time, I have to admit that compiling and loading code from VSCode to the controller is an order of magnitude faster than from CubeIDE. But at the same time, CubeIDE is the de facto standard: if something doesn't work in VSCode, I first have to check whether it works in CubeIDE or whether I made a mistake somewhere. For example, to output floating point numbers via printf in CubeIDE, you only need to check one box, but I had to spend several hours Googling for a solution for VSCode. Or in CubeIDE, you can analyze the memory used after compilation in detail, which is not available in VSCode.

Fifteen years ago, I had experience coding AVR when they just released a new version of their IDE based on Visual Studio OEM. I think it was my best experience, which I was later able to apply when working with C# in the same Visual Studio. It must be acknowledged that Visual Studio is still the most popular IDE, and therefore supporting different solutions in a single environment is more productive than learning a separate environment for each solution. I would be delighted if an official plugin from STM with full support, including SWV, appeared in the Visual Studio store. As colleagues noted above, VSCode is not suitable for a professional environment for many reasons. But I wouldn't compare CubeIDE (Eclipse) to a Porsche, which is primarily associated with speed. It's more like an old 1950s Cadillac: big, unwieldy, questionably comfortable, but for some reason everyone considers it prestigious.

Hello @mattias norlander ,

"

I would however be very curious to hear your feedbacks as to why VS Code is awful?

• Is it because you tried our early version of the VS Code extensions from ST and it left a sour after taste?
• Or is it a more general comment on VS Code as an editor/framework?

"

In this regard, I fully support the opinions of my colleagues who wrote theirs above.

VS Code is an excellent editor for many types of projects, especially web development, scripting, and other. However, it is not the optimal tool for developing for microcontrollers and embedded systems. The reasons are as follows: embedded IDEs, such as IAR, Keil, or STM32CubeIDE, were originally designed for working with microcontrollers. They include ready-made integration with compilers, debuggers, peripheral modules, and so on. This allows the developer to immediately see the operation of registers, stack, memory, and peripherals in real time. To do this in VS Code, you need to perform a lot of unnecessary actions and figure out what to click and where. A full-fledged IDE for embedded systems is designed so that everything you need is at hand and there is nothing unnecessary. The interface of STM32CubeIDE itself is designed in the classic style of an IDE designed for microcontroller programming. This is a classic features in embedded systems, but the same can't be said for VS Code. You can spend a lot of time configuring VS Code, or even more time fixing some bug or a solution to some problem or task that has arisen in VS Code. Also, it's great that STM32CubeIDE has two workspaces: the first for writing code, the second for debugging code.

@Mykola_Levun 

Just about sums it up ;)

I want to be able to use it, not spend my time wondering why it does not work...

@mattias norlander ,

I'd like to see some of the features available in the IAR Workbench added to the STM32CubeIDE in the near future.

The IAR Workbench has the ability to configure settings so that when compiling a project, the IAR Workbench automatically calculates the firmware checksum (binary or hex file) and stores it in the reverse file at a specific address. You can choose the checksum calculation algorithm. If the firmware binary data doesn't occupy the entire flash memory of the microcontroller, it's possible to extend the flash memory to the full capacity with some data, for example, 0xFF.

I'm attaching a screenshot of the IAR Workbench window that allows you to perform the actions described above:

I use this functionality very often. I have to write my own applications that perform the actions described above and include them in Post Build Actions in the STM32CubeIDE.

@mattias norlander, what do you think of this functionality being implemented in the STM32CubeIDE?

I'd like to hear from other engineers, how often do you use this feature?

I did write a small tutorial on how to use CubeIDE and CubeMX together.

https://stm32world.com/wiki/STM32CubeIDE_2.0.0_Tutorial

@lbthomsen , thanks for that. We are working on a video tutorial on the "interoperability" in parallel. But we are not as agile and fast the community. Many reasons behind, I will share some communication in a few days...

I also sent you an e-mail to your address listed on STM32world (webmaster).