smoltcp-rs/smoltcp

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

4579 stars · 557 forks observed · 2026-08-28

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

smoltcp is a standalone, event-driven TCP/IP stack written in Rust, designed for bare-metal and real-time systems without heap allocation. It supports Ethernet, IP, IEEE 802.15.4, and 6LoWPAN with TCP, UDP, ICMP, and DHCP protocols.

Use cases

• add TCP/IP networking to an embedded microcontroller project
• implement a no_std network stack for bare-metal Rust firmware
• run TCP and UDP sockets on a device without an operating system
• use 6LoWPAN and IEEE 802.15.4 networking in IoT devices
• build a userspace TCP/IP stack for testing or simulation
• serve network protocols on real-time systems without heap allocation

When to choose

• you need a TCP/IP stack in a no_std or heapless embedded environment
• you are writing Rust firmware for microcontrollers that requires networking
• you want a simple, robust, event-driven network stack you can audit and control
• you need IPv4/IPv6, TCP, UDP, or 6LoWPAN support without an OS

When to avoid

• you need a fully featured, production-grade stack with all RFC features like IPv4 options or 802.1Q
• you are building a general-purpose desktop or server application where the OS network stack suffices
• you need maximum throughput beyond ~Gbps loopback performance
• you prefer a C-based stack like lwIP for non-Rust projects

Facets

library · maturity active

networking http-server embedded-systems networking rust embedded cross-platform tcp-ip-stack no-std bare-metal embedded-networking ipv6 6lowpan

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="smoltcp-rs/smoltcp")