Serial Studio turns the numbers your hardware prints into a live dashboard.

You already call Serial.println on an Arduino, ESP32, STM32, Teensy, or Raspberry Pi. Serial Studio reads those lines over serial and draws plots, gauges, maps, and 3D views. It also reads Bluetooth LE, network protocols, and industrial buses (Modbus, CAN bus, OPC UA, MQTT), and logs to CSV or SQLite. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi.

Upload this sketch to an Arduino Uno-class board. Sensors on A0 and A1 are best, but open wires work too: floating pins give moving noise, enough to see a plot. On an ESP32, replace A0 and A1 with ADC pins such as 34 and 35.

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  int sensorA = analogRead(A0);
  int sensorB = analogRead(A1);
  Serial.print(sensorA);
  Serial.print(",");
  Serial.println(sensorB);
  delay(100);
}

Then:

1. Download and start Serial Studio.
2. In the Device Setup panel, set Operation Mode to Quick Plot (Auto-Detected Format).
3. Choose your serial port, set the baud rate to 9600 (the value in Serial.begin), and click Connect.

Two traces appear in the dashboard, one per column. Touch a sensor and watch a trace move. Garbled text in the console almost always means the baud rate does not match the sketch; nothing is broken. If your port is not listed, unplug and replug the board and close the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor, which holds the port open. Named values work too: temp:21.5,hum:40 plots two traces called temp and hum.

That is the whole setup. No project file needed.

To keep what you see, click Menu in the dashboard taskbar and choose Save as Project. The Project Editor opens, where you rename channels, set units, and pick widgets. The getting started guide walks through each step, including problems; /examples has Arduino sketches, ESP32 code, and Python scripts.

The Device Setup panel offers three modes, all free (Operation Modes has the details).

• The official binary runs without a license. Free features have no time limit. The first time you use a Pro feature, Serial Studio offers a 14-day Pro trial (no account or payment; registering it needs an internet connection). When the trial ends, Pro features lock and the free features keep working.
• A GPL build compiled from source has the free features only.
• Commercial use of the official binary requires a Pro license.

The full feature matrix is in Pro vs Free; the editions table compares the three ways to run Serial Studio.

Pro features are tagged (Pro); everything else is in the GPL build.

Connect to a device. Serial/UART, Bluetooth LE, and network sockets (TCP, UDP, WebSocket, HTTP) are free. MQTT, Modbus TCP/RTU, CAN Bus, OPC UA, Siemens S7comm, EtherNet/IP, IEC 60870-5-104, audio input, raw USB, HID, and Process I/O are Pro, as is running several devices in one project. Pro also turns Modbus register-map and CAN DBC files into projects.

Read PLCs without a gateway (Pro). OPC UA browses a controller's address space, and you tick the tags you want. S7comm, EtherNet/IP, and IEC 60870-5-104 read Siemens, Allen-Bradley, Omron, and substation equipment directly. These three drivers are read-only, so connecting cannot change a running machine. Addressing examples and controller lists are on the S7, EtherNet/IP, and IEC 60870-5-104 pages.

Visualize data. Line plots, gauges, bar charts, meters, GPS maps, FFT spectrum, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, data grids, LED panels, a terminal, and multi-channel plots are free. Pro adds 3D Plot, Waterfall (spectrogram), Image View (live camera), and the Canvas widget, a JavaScript paint(ctx, w, h) callback with 18 starting templates.

Build dashboards. The Project Editor defines groups, datasets, and widgets through forms. Custom workspaces (Pro) split big projects into tabs with a searchable taskbar.

Parse and transform data. A frame parser is a small function that turns one frame (usually one line of text) into numbers. Frame parsers are Built-In templates (no code, the default for new projects), JavaScript, or Lua. Script templates cover MAVLink, NMEA, UBX, MessagePack, COBS, SLIP, JSON, and others. Per-dataset transforms and Variables (Pro) filter, scale, and derive values every frame. Serial Studio parses 256,000 frames per second, enforced as a CI benchmark gate (Benchmark).

Send commands back (Pro). A slider can send G1 X10 over serial. Buttons, sliders, knobs, toggles, and text fields run JavaScript templates that emit GCode, SCPI, Modbus, NMEA, or CAN, on demand or on a timer.

Record and replay. CSV export is free. MDF4, session recording into SQLite, PDF session reports, file transfer (XMODEM, YMODEM, ZMODEM), and a live InfluxDB 2.x sink are Pro.

Automate it. The API Server is off until you turn on Enable API Server on the General page of Preferences, so a fresh install exposes nothing. It then listens on TCP port 7777 and exposes hundreds of commands over TCP (API reference). In official binaries the same switch also starts a gRPC server on port 8888, with the same commands and live frame streaming; a source build includes it only with -DENABLE_GRPC=ON (gRPC server). An MCP server lets Claude Desktop or any MCP host call the same surface.

Let an AI edit the project (Pro). The AI Assistant is a bring-your-own-key chat panel that edits the project, with local models supported for offline use. Mutating actions show an Approve/Deny card first. See the AI Assistant docs.

Serial Studio is available as source code and as official precompiled binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

• Latest stable release
• Pre-release builds

Download the file ending in -Windows.msi (installer) or -Windows-Portable.zip (no installation). Requires the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64). On first launch Windows may warn about an unknown developer. Click "More Info", then "Run Anyway" to continue.

Download the file ending in -macOS.dmg, a universal build for Apple silicon and Intel. Open the DMG and drag Serial Studio into Applications. The first time, right-click the app and choose Open. You can also install it via Homebrew:

brew install --cask serial-studio

The Homebrew cask is community-maintained and not tested by the project.

The recommended way to install on Linux is via the official AppImage. Download it from the latest release, then make it executable and run it. Replace <version> with the version you downloaded; the ARM64 file ends in Linux-arm64.AppImage. The name says Pro because the one official binary contains the Pro features; it runs without a license (see Free or Pro?).

chmod +x Serial-Studio-Pro-<version>-Linux-x64.AppImage
./Serial-Studio-Pro-<version>-Linux-x64.AppImage

For better desktop integration (menu entries, icons, updates), use AppImageLauncher.

All Linux packages (AppImage, DEB, RPM, x64 and ARM64) bundle their own glibc. The host's glibc version does not matter (see Linux Installation).

Serial Studio is on Flathub.

An ARM64 AppImage is available for Raspberry Pi and similar boards. It needs a 64-bit Linux distro (Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, Ubuntu, Debian, and so on).

• Help center: FAQs, use cases, comparisons, troubleshooting. The Markdown source is in doc/help.
• Getting started: first connection, the three operation modes, and common problems.
• Use cases: worked scenarios across ten fields, from rocketry and drones to industrial automation, with the hardware and data rates involved.
• Comparison: how it differs from the Arduino IDE Serial Plotter, Processing, MATLAB, LabVIEW, and Grafana.
• Pro vs Free: the full feature matrix for both editions.
• Automation: the API reference (with an API client example), the gRPC server, and an MCP client.
• AI agent guide: for ChatGPT, Claude, and other assistants.

• Qt 6.11.2, the version CI builds. Older Qt versions are not tested. Required modules: QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets, QtQml, QtQuick, QtQuickControls2, QtGraphs, QtSvg, QtSql, QtSerialPort, QtBluetooth, QtCore5Compat, and Qt LinguistTools at build time.
• A C++20 compiler: GCC, Clang, or MSVC.
• CMake 3.20 or later.
• Platform toolchain (see Platform specifics).

sudo apt install libgl1-mesa-dev build-essential

xcode-select --install
brew install qt@6

Visual Studio with the C++ workload, and Qt from the official installer.

All C/C++ dependencies (zlib, expat, OpenSSL, KissFFT, and so on) are vendored in lib/ or fetched automatically via CMake's FetchContent. No package manager is needed.

cmake -B build -DPRODUCTION_OPTIMIZATION=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release -j$(nproc)

On Windows the default generator is Visual Studio, which is multi-config: it ignores CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE and builds Debug unless you pass --config Release to the build step (as shown above). Skipping it builds the Debug config, which mixes MSVC's /RTC1 runtime checks with the production /O2 flags and fails with '/O2' and '/RTC1' command-line options are incompatible. Alternatively, configure with the single-config Ninja generator (cmake -B build -G Ninja ...), which honors CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE.

You can also open CMakeLists.txt in Qt Creator or any CMake-aware IDE without extra setup.

The default build is the GPLv3 edition: the free features only, with no Pro modules compiled in. Some Pro modules depend on proprietary Qt modules (Modbus, CAN Bus, MQTT, OPC UA); others are commercial-licensed code in this repository. The GPL edition cannot create or edit per-dataset transforms, Variables, or custom workspaces, and a project that contains a transform or a Variables table needs Pro to connect (removing them is free). See Pro vs Free Features for the full list.

If you are a Pro user or have a commercial license, contact the maintainer for build instructions and activation details.

Serial Studio is developed and maintained by Alex Spataru.

If Serial Studio is useful to you, here are a few ways to support it:

• Donate via PayPal: keeps the project active.
• Buy a commercial license: unlocks Pro features and priority support.
• Become an affiliate: earn a commission by referring new customers.

Serial Studio uses a dual-license model that separates open source usage from commercial distribution:

• LICENSE.md: overview of the dual-license structure, routing to the full license documents.
• LICENSES/GPL-3.0-or-later.txt: full GNU GPLv3 text for open source source code.
• LICENSES/LicenseRef-SerialStudio-Commercial.txt: full terms for proprietary features and official binaries.

Source files are individually marked with SPDX headers, either GPL-3.0-or-later, LicenseRef-SerialStudio-Commercial, or both. The edition comparison is under Picking the right version.

The table compares the three ways to run Serial Studio.

The GPL build carries the full GPLv3 grant: use for any purpose, commercial use included, with no restrictions beyond the GPL's own terms. It excludes the Pro modules. Pro features and official binaries are proprietary: the official binaries are governed by the EULA, and using Pro features beyond the 14-day trial requires a commercial license. A file's SPDX header states its license; files marked commercial-only carry no GPL rights.

Contributions are welcome: bug fixes, new features, or doc improvements. CONTRIBUTING.md covers code style and pull request steps. Check existing issues and pull requests first. Contributions to both GPL-licensed code and the commercial (Pro) modules are welcome; Pro contributions are accepted under the Contributor License Agreement in CONTRIBUTING.md.

For larger changes, open an issue first to agree on the approach with the maintainer.