// comparison
Reticulum, MeshCore and Meshtastic are often mentioned in the same breath. All three run on LoRa, but they work differently and are not compatible with each other.
| Reticulum | MeshCore | Meshtastic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The stack runs on | Usually the host (computer or phone), with microReticulum firmware the board itself | The LoRa board | The LoRa board |
| The LoRa board is | Radio modem (RNode), or standalone node (RTNode, Ratdeck/Ratcom) | Standalone device | Standalone device |
| Standalone repeater | Yes, with microReticulum firmware (board + solar panel), still young | Yes (board + solar panel) | Yes (board + solar panel) |
| Encryption | End-to-end, always on, per identity | AES-256, per network | AES-256, per channel |
| Transport media | LoRa + TCP + WiFi + BLE + I2P + serial | LoRa (MQTT optional) | LoRa (MQTT optional) |
| Without internet | Yes, via LoRa or local network | Yes, fully | Yes, fully |
| Metadata protection | No source address in packets | Limited | Limited |
| More than messaging | Files, shell, git, voice, games | Messaging + location | Messaging + location + telemetry |
| Private network | Yes, via IFAC passphrase | Via channel key | Via channel key |
| Community size | Small, growing | Medium | Large |
With MeshCore and Meshtastic the LoRa board does almost everything itself: routing, encryption and storing messages. That makes standalone repeaters on a roof or mast relatively simple.
With Reticulum the LoRa board is usually a radio modem driven by a host, such as your phone, laptop or a Raspberry Pi. In return you get multiple transport media at the same time, and more than messaging: files, shell, voice. If you do not want a host, that is now possible too: firmware based on microReticulum runs the whole stack on the board itself.
The original Python implementation of Reticulum does not fit on an ESP32: Python is too heavy for 520KB RAM. microReticulum (C++) and rsReticulum (Rust) are designed specifically for microcontrollers. The T-Deck Plus and Cardputer have an ESP32-S3 with 8MB PSRAM, enough for a full Reticulum client (Ratdeck, Ratcom). For repeaters without a screen there is RTNode-HeltecV4 for the Heltec V3 and V4, and ScotMesh for boards including the SenseCAP Solar Node P1. With those, a Reticulum solar repeater sits on a roof without a computer next to it. Both projects are young and maintained by a small group of people. With RTNode you cannot update the firmware remotely: every update means opening the enclosure.
You can run Reticulum and MeshCore/Meshtastic at the same time on the same machine with different LoRa modules. Two separate networks, the same hardware, different USB ports and frequencies.
Bridging between the systems is not possible without breaking the end-to-end encryption. A bridge would have to decrypt the message to forward it.
Many hobbyists run both. More about the available apps on the software page. LoRa settings for ReticulumNet are on LoRa.