As alluded to in the previous section, the main advantage of choosing the FreeRTOS system over the Zephyr project is that it is very minimal, making the FreeRTOS system easier to learn and optimize for heavily resource constrained devices. However, the Zephyr project offers the following advantages while still being a viable option for resource constrained devices:
- Highly configurable and modular, reducing long-term engineering efforts needed to create and maintain projects
- An integrated device driver interface
- A native, fully featured and optimized networking stack
- Supports a range of subsystems, including USB, filesystem, logging, and device firmware update (DFU)
- Memory and resources are typically statically allocated, befitting long-running systems
- Offers memory protection using stack overflow protection, thread isolation, kernel object, and device driver permission tracking
- Supports cooperative and preemptive scheduling