CODESYS Brands - Which PLC Manufacturers Use CODESYS?

CODESYS is a PLC programming development environment and runtime system developed by 3S-Smart Software Solutions (now CODESYS Group), fully compliant with the IEC 61131-3 standard. Many automation equipment manufacturers integrate the CODESYS runtime into their own hardware under license. In this article, I examine which brands use CODESYS and their respective product families.

Why Is CODESYS So Widespread?

There are a few key reasons why CODESYS has spread across such a wide ecosystem:

• IEC 61131-3 compliance — Full support for LD, FBD, ST, IL, SFC, allowing programmers to work across brands
• OEM licensing model — Manufacturers can embed the runtime directly into their hardware
• Rich library ecosystem — Motion, Safety, Visualization, and fieldbus libraries
• Visualization (WebVisu) — Browser-based HMI panels without needing separate HMI software
• EtherCAT master support — A key reason it is preferred for high-performance motion control

Brands That Use CODESYS

• Lenze — c300, p300, p500, c430, c520, c550 series; programming tool: (PLC Designer / CODESYS V3 based)
• Wago — PFC100 G2, PFC200 G2 (750/753 series I/O system); programming tool: e!COCKPIT (e!RUNTIME, CODESYS V3)
• Schneider Electric — Modicon M241, M251, M262, M258, M218, LMC058, LMC078, PacDrive 3; programming tool: EcoStruxure Machine Expert v2.2
• Bosch Rexroth — ctrlX CORE (ctrlX PLC app, CODESYS V3 based, Linux RT); programming tool: ctrlX WORKS
• Festo — CPX-E-CEC-C1-EP, CPX-E-CEC-M1-EP (EtherCAT + SoftMotion); programming tool: Festo Automation Suite (CODESYS V3)
• Phoenix Contact — AXC F 1152, AXC F 2152 (PLCnext Technology, firmware 2024.0 LTS); programming tool: PLCnext Engineer 2024.0
• ifm electronic — CR710S, CR711S (ecomatmobile / ecomatController series, SIL2 supported); programming tool: CODESYS V3.5
• Berghof — EC1000, ECC series, B-Nimis MC-Pi, B-Fortis CC; programming tool: CODESYS V3 (SoftMotion + WebVisu supported)
• Kunbus — RevPi Connect 4, RevPi Connect 5 (Compute Module 5, late 2024); programming tool: CODESYS Control for Raspberry Pi MC SL
• Turck — TX500 HMI/PLC series (4.3″/7″/10.4″), TBEN-L-PLC (IP67 field controller); programming tool: CODESYS V3
• SIGMATEK — DIAS controller family; programming tool: CODESYS V3 based LASAL
• Bachmann Electronic — M1 series; programming tool: CODESYS V3
• Beijer Electronics — X2 series; programming tool: CODESYS V3

Conclusion

Today, CODESYS is licensed by more than 500 OEM brands and runs on millions of devices worldwide. Learning CODESYS means being able to work with many different brands in practice — which makes it one of the most valuable skills in the industrial automation world.

From my own experience: motion control projects I developed on Lenze controllers were transferred to other brands’ CODESYS-based hardware with almost no adaptation needed, as long as I used PLCopen blocks. This portability is one of CODESYS’s greatest strengths. However, each brand adds its own proprietary functions and applications. These custom functions unfortunately do not work on other CODESYS devices.