<p>Optically generated microwave signals exhibit some of the lowest phase noise and timing jitter of any microwave-generating technology. The success of octave-spanning optical frequency combs in downconverting ultrastable optical frequency references has motivated the development of compact, robust and highly manufacturable optical systems that maintain the low microwave phase noise of their tabletop counterparts. Two-point optical frequency division using chip-scale components and ~1-THz-spanning microcombs has been successful, but with stringent requirements on the free-running noise and feedback control dynamics of the comb source. Here we introduce a major simplification of this architecture that replaces feedback control of the frequency comb in favour of electronic feed-forward noise cancellation, which significantly relaxes the comb requirements. Demonstrated with a high-repetition-rate solid-state mode-locked laser and a microcomb, feed-forward on a 10-GHz carrier results in more robust operation with phase noise as low as –153 dBc Hz⁻¹ at offsets of ≥10 kHz, femtosecond timing jitter and elimination of large noise increase of the feedback servo bump. The compatibility of the system with a variety of highly manufacturable frequency comb designs and its resilience and straightforward implementation represent an important step forward towards a fully chip-scale implementation of optically generated microwaves, with applications in radar, sensing and position, navigation and timing technologies.</p>