From what I can tell chibicc, unlike tcc, is not a complete c compiler in and of itself. Looking at its source code, it relies upon external tools for both x86_64 code gen and linking: https://github.com/rui314/chibicc/blob/90d1f7f199cc55b13c7fd...

It does rely on binutils, but by this standard GCC is not a complete C compiler either.

	▲	kragen 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Relying on binutils and an assembler is fine. I don't think it really affects the internal complexity of the compiler much, but having textual assembly to look at can be handy for debugging the compiler, so it might reduce the human effort to get it working.