libusb/hidapi

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

2261 stars · 474 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

HIDAPI is a cross-platform C library for communicating with USB and Bluetooth HID-class devices on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Android. It offers multiple backends (hid.dll, hidraw, libusb, IOHidManager) and can be built as a shared library or embedded via a single source file and header.

Use cases

• read input reports from a custom USB HID device
• communicate with a Bluetooth HID gamepad from a desktop app
• send feature reports to an HID sensor on Linux
• enumerate HID devices on macOS and Windows portably
• build a userspace tool to configure an HID keyboard
• access HID devices on Android without root

When to choose

• you need a single API to talk to HID devices across Windows, Linux, macOS, and BSD
• you want a small C library you can embed directly in your source tree
• you need both USB and Bluetooth HID support
• you are writing userspace HID tooling without writing kernel drivers

When to avoid

• you need generic USB (non-HID) device communication - use libusb instead
• you need high-level input event handling for keyboards/mice in a GUI app - use your platform's input framework
• you need serial or bulk transfers outside the HID class

Facets

library · maturity stable

sdk developer-tools hardware cross-platform developer-tools windows bsd cpp c hid usb-hid bluetooth hidraw libusb device-communication c-library linux macos android

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