How it works?
A debugger is a computer program that assists in the detection and correction of errors in other computer programs. In addition to being a disassembler, IDA is also a powerful and versatile debugger. It supports multiple debugging targets and can handle remote applications, via a remote debugging server.
IDA Pro's debugger covers every aspect of a debugging session, provides access to all the segments of the process's memory space and benefit from all of IDA's powerful functionalities (structures, graph, creating breakpoints in DLLs).

Remote debugging servers
Enable debugging of any executable, from any platform!
Cross-platform debugging
Enable instant debugging, easy connection to both local and remote processes and support for 64-bit systems
Scriptable debuggers
Introduced since IDA 5.2, allow users to drop the event-based model and write IDA scripts to control the debugger

IDA runs on Windows |
IDA runs on Linux |
IDA runs on Mac OS X |
Additional Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Target Platform: Windows 32/64-bit |
Local/Remote | Remote | Remote | On 32-bit Windows platforms, remote only. |
Target Platform: Linux 32/64-bit |
Remote | Local/Remote | Remote |
On 32-bit Linux platforms, remote only. Supported platforms: x86/x64/ARM32 Linux/ARM Android |
Target Platform: OS X x86/x64 |
Remote | Remote | Local/Remote | On 32-bit Mac OS X platforms, remote only. |
Target Platform: iOS (iPhone and iPad) |
Remote | Remote | Remote | Supports remote debugging applications on iOS >= 9.0 and iPadOS >= 13.1, via Apples debugserver |
Target Platform: XNU |
Remote | Remote | Remote | Darwin kernel debugger. OSX kernel mode debugging is supported via the builtin gdb stub for VMware Fusion (EFI firmware debugging is also supported). iOS kernel mode debugging supported via Corellium and ktrw. |
Target Platform: Bochs |
Bochs Emulator | Bochs Emulator | Bochs Emulator | |
Target Platform: GDB Server |
GDB Server | GDB Server | GDB Server |
Debugger based on GDB Server.
Particularly useful for
windows or
linux
kernel debugging via VMWare, or even
QEMU-based debugging.
Currently (IDA 7.4) supported processors: x86/x64, ARM/AArch64, PowerPC, MIPS, Motorola 68k, Infineon TriCore, and Renesas RH850. |
Target Platform: WinDBG 32/64-bit |
Remote | / | / |
Both user-mode and
kernel-mode
debugging are available.
64-bit debugging is supported too.
See the help page
This debugger is available only for the Windows version of IDA Pro |
Target Platform: Intel PIN |
Local | Local | / | Based on Intel PIN. Especially useful for tracing but can be used as a regular debugger too. |
Target Platform: Android (Dalvik) |
Remote | Remote | Remote |
Both DEX bytecode and source level debugging are available. Please note that our Linux debugger can handle native code as well. |
Notes
Want to learn more about IDA Debugger?
See from our many debugging tutorials!
See from our many debugging tutorials!