# njh/EtherCard

EtherCard is an IPv4 driver for the ENC28J60 chip, compatible with Arduino IDE

Repository: https://github.com/njh/EtherCard
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ethercard
Homepage: https://www.aelius.com/njh/ethercard/
Language: C++
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: enc28j60, arduino, ethernet
Last push: 2023-05-31T10:43:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5481, "days_push": 1190, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1080, forks 448 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:30.526721+00:00)

## What it is
EtherCard is an Arduino library providing an IPv4 Ethernet driver for the Microchip ENC28J60 chip over SPI. It offers high-level routines for data transfer and HTTP handling on AVR-based Arduino boards.

## Use cases
- connect an Arduino to Ethernet with an ENC28J60 module
- send HTTP requests from an Arduino Uno
- build a simple Arduino web server
- transfer data over TCP/IP from an AVR microcontroller
- add network connectivity to an Arduino Nano project

## When to choose
- you have an ENC28J60 Ethernet module and an AVR-based Arduino like Uno, Mega, or Nano
- you need lightweight IPv4/HTTP networking on a classic Arduino with limited RAM
- you want a mature, well-documented Arduino library available in the Library Manager

## When to avoid
- you use non-AVR boards such as Arduino Due, Zero, or 101
- you need a different Ethernet chip than the ENC28J60
- your project needs more than ~1k of RAM for the packet buffer on a small microcontroller

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: networking, http-client, http-server, embedded
- domain: iot, embedded-systems, networking, hardware
- platform: embedded, iot, cpp
- tags: arduino, enc28j60, ethernet, avr, spi, driver

## Member repositories
- njh/EtherCard (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.526721+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:53:00.089377+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/njh/EtherCard (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.526721+00:00, sha fad519bf05e0)
  - homepage: https://www.aelius.com/njh/ethercard/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:53:50.924604+00:00, sha f43f93c78ea4)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.