Zephyr Turns 10 as Global Adoption Surges and Long-Term Embedded Use Expands
New Linux Foundation Research Shows 70% of North American Respondent Organizations Already Use Zephyr in Products, With 69% Planning to Increase Adoption
SAN FRANCISCO, March 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Zephyr Project today marks its 10-year anniversary with new data showing it has become a production-grade, foundational technology for embedded systems worldwide. According to new research from Linux Foundation Research, 70% of surveyed organizations in the United States and Canada and 62% in Europe report already using Zephyr in commercial products, with 69% planning to increase or significantly increase adoption over the next year.
The findings, published in Zephyr Turns 10: A Decade of Adoption, Maturity, and Ecosystem Evolution, reflect a project that has moved well beyond experimentation. More than half of organizations (52%) report supporting Zephyr-based products for five to ten years or longer, underscoring its role in long-lifecycle industrial and embedded deployments.
"Ten years ago, Zephyr set out to solve a problem many embedded teams quietly struggled with: how to build dependable real-time systems without being locked into a single vendor, toolchain, or proprietary stack," said Kate Stewart, Zephyr Project Director and VP of Dependable Embedded Systems. "Today, Zephyr stands as a mature and trusted RTOS, embedded in products designed to last and be supported for years and in many cases, decades. The next decade will be defined not just by new features, but by how well we preserve the principles that made Zephyr successful: openness, collaboration, portability, and trust."
To better understand Zephyr's evolution, the study went beyond the survey data to capture the lived experiences of those at the forefront of the ecosystem.
"Through in-depth interviews with key IoT and embedded hardware leaders, we uncovered a wealth of practitioner insight that reflects not just the project's technical strengths, but its strategic trajectory," said Hilary Carter, SVP Research at the Linux Foundation. "The research shows that the Zephyr Project is a growing, healthy, and highly responsive ecosystem."
Launched in 2016 under open governance at the Linux Foundation, Zephyr set out to address a longstanding challenge in embedded development: building secure, real-time systems without vendor lock-in that can be used in safety critical systems. A decade later, it supports more than 1000 boards across multiple architectures and has grown from roughly 100 contributors at launch to more than 3,000 contributors globally.
The research highlights several defining characteristics of Zephyr's evolution:
- Operational maturity: 79% of respondents report improvements in hardware and board support, and 60% cite improved connectivity since adopting Zephyr.
- Portability as a primary driver: 49% of organizations identify easier hardware portability as the single biggest impact of adoption.
- Security by design: 64% report that security has improved or remained stable over time.
- Sustained growth: Only 1% of organizations expect to decrease usage.
The Zephyr Project will kick off its anniversary celebration at the embedded world Exhibition & Conference 2026 in Nuremberg, Germany on Tuesday March 10th, where it will host a dedicated booth in Hall 4, Stand 4-170. In addition to members showcasing demos with Zephyr, there will be products based on Zephyr on display. The embedded world Conference will have a track of Zephyr talks on Wednesday, March 11th.
The full research report is available at: [www.linuxfoundation.org/research/zephyr-turns-10]
About the Zephyr Project
The Zephyr® Project is an open source, scalable real-time operating system (RTOS) supporting multiple hardware architectures. To learn more, please visit www.zephyrproject.org.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards and data. Linux Foundation projects, including Linux, Kubernetes, Model Context Protocol (MCP), OpenChain, OpenSearch, OpenSSF, OpenStack, PyTorch, Ray, RISC-V, SPDX and Zephyr, provide the foundation for global infrastructure. The Linux Foundation is focused on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.
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