esp-open-sdk

It's been a while, so I'm not sure if it will work on the newer models, but I used to use the xtensa-lx106-elf (patched from crosstool-NG[0]) toolchain to build my ESP8266 project and then upload it wil esptool.py. There was also esp-open-sdk which was an installer for that toolchain and some additional libraries[1]. [0]: https://github.com/i404788/crosstool-NG [1]: https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk

The toolchain is as good as for ARM, it is gcc no more no less. You perhaps mean the original SDK which was based on proprietary blobs and sucked. See it here, the good one, https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk

yes I work for Cesanta. BTW thank you for https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk, very useful.

Definitely worth a look. One of the guys behind this is pfalcon who maintains the best open development environment for programming the ESP8266 directly[1]. I love the ESP as a platform. It's low cost but still pretty impressive. Having micropython running on it just increases its ease of use, but you've also got Arduino and NodeMCU (Lua) so there's a great budding ecosystem around it. [1] https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk

I have been avoiding the ESP8266 because of the toolchain - when it was released, it was essentially a complete (buggy) proprietary firmware with the ability to write simple Arduino-like plugins. The situation is better now, but it still requires several proprietary bits: https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk The cost of the esp8266 is very nice. A comparable solution from TI (the CC3200) is $15. But it's sad to see the hardware needlessly crippled by bad software.