ESP-Now independent from Arduino.IDE?

[marine_hm]

I am familiar with Arduino.IDE
Can I create code and program the ESP32 MCUs without Arduino.IDE? OR, is ESP-NOW a library used within
Arduino.IDE?

What's the difference between Arduino.IDE and Espressif.IDF?

[MicroController]

Can I create code and program the ESP32 MCUs without Arduino.IDE?

Absolutely: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... index.html

OR, is ESP-NOW a library used within Arduino.IDE?

You can use the ESP-NOW protocol without any Arduino libraries: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... p_now.html