libusb/libusb

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

6141 stars · 2066 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

libusb is a C library providing generic, user-mode access to USB devices across Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and BSD platforms. It supports all USB protocol versions from 1.0 through USB 4.0 via a single portable API without requiring elevated privileges.

Use cases

• communicate with usb hardware from a cross-platform application
• read and write to a usb device without writing kernel drivers
• access usb devices in user mode without admin privileges
• enumerate and control usb devices on linux, macos, and windows
• build firmware flashing or device programming tools
• support usb 3.x and usb4 devices in a c or c++ app

When to choose

• you need portable usb device access from C/C++ with one codebase
• you want to avoid writing platform-specific kernel drivers
• you need broad OS support including Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and BSD
• you need support for all USB protocol versions up to USB 4.0

When to avoid

• you need high-level class drivers for a specific device type (e.g., printers, mass storage) that an OS already provides
• you are working in a language with a higher-level USB library that wraps libusb anyway
• you need kernel-mode USB access or low-latency kernel-level performance

Facets

library · maturity stable

sdk developer-tools hardware cross-platform developer-tools windows cross-platform c cpp usb usb-devices user-mode hardware-access c-library usb-3 linux macos android

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="libusb/libusb")