We are often asked for a comparison between STM32CubeIDE and KEIL, it is not simple or rather it is not simply linked to the functionality of the two IDEs but also depends a lot on how a developer is used to working.
In this page we consider only the optimizations available because sometime the hex size is important for reduce the flash dimension and of course the costs of the board.
We did a test on STM32L433RC using the STM32CubeIDE (ver.1.6.0) and KEIL uVision 5 (ver.5.33.0.0).
We did a simple flashing led.
Important Note
In our KEIL installation the default optimization is for size so we did the same for the STM32CubeIDE.
For configure the STM32CubeIDE for the size optimization see here.
For generate the hex in STM32CubeIDE see the configuration below.
For generate the hex in KEILsee the configuration below.
Examples ready to use
Here the result of our test
- STM32CubeIDE hex – 20K
- KEIL hex – 19K