Meshtastic or Meshcore 🤔

[BlueGrass77]

Hi All, 

I just got my GSRM license this week, been wanting to do it for a while and finally got around to doing it. Anyways... 

The past week I have been watching a bunch of YouTube videos where people are talking about how they are switching from Meshtastic to Meshcore. I am looking to get started into the mesh coms but I am curious what you all think about them. 

I have seen some people saying that they use both, Meshtastic for short immediate area hops and then use Meshcore to do longer hops in distant areas.

What one are you using?

Why did you pick that one?

Did you try one then switch to the other?

What equipment do you think is best for a starter node?

 

Look forward to the conversation.

Cheers 

[KBSherwood]

Meshcore. 

IMO meshtastic has some fundamental design flaws for emergency comms or for use in populated areas. it may work well to get battery and temp info from some random piece of equipment in a field on some farm, but I had roughly a 10% success rate getting messages out on meshtastic. Meshcore requires local infrastructure (repeaters) but is a much more stable/reliable implementation. 

[RoadApple]

On 1/30/2026 at 3:44 PM, KBSherwood said:

IMO meshtastic has some fundamental design flaws for emergency comms or for use in populated areas. it may work well to get battery and temp info from some random piece of equipment in a field on some farm, but I had roughly a 10% success rate getting messages out on meshtastic. Meshcore requires local infrastructure (repeaters) but is a much more stable/reliable implementation. 

I've not worked with it, but I've heard this same sentiment expressed by others.

[beerftw]

On 1/30/2026 at 5:03 PM, BlueGrass77 said:

Hi All, 

I just got my GSRM license this week, been wanting to do it for a while and finally got around to doing it. Anyways... 

The past week I have been watching a bunch of YouTube videos where people are talking about how they are switching from Meshtastic to Meshcore. I am looking to get started into the mesh coms but I am curious what you all think about them. 

I have seen some people saying that they use both, Meshtastic for short immediate area hops and then use Meshcore to do longer hops in distant areas.

What one are you using?

Why did you pick that one?

Did you try one then switch to the other?

What equipment do you think is best for a starter node?

 

Look forward to the conversation.

Cheers 

I do not use either but have done some research on it after people kept bringing it up. Meshtastic works better in rural areas, but fails badly often in urban areas, meshcore does better in urban areas.

 

  They are basically the same thing just they handle traffic different. Meshtastic tends to bounce around but will drop the transmission after bouncing too many times, which is why it does bad in urban environments, but works good in rural environments. Meshcore has a better system that alows the transmission to keep bouncing until it reaches it's destination, which is good if you are in an urban environment where it may be bounced between thousands of devices before reaching it's destination.

 

  Where I am at meshcore has no repeaters, meshtastic has one was out in nowhere, and adoption except on bigger ranches here is nearly non existent, so even bouncing between devices will not work well. In austin they have a massive meshcore and meshtastic network.

 

  For which one you want first try and research the repeater node and user base in your area, because with a major power or internet outage, device to device or device to repeater etc is how the texts will transmit, and if neither is in range it will go nowhere.

[BlueGrass77]

On 2/1/2026 at 11:53 AM, beerftw said:

I do not use either but have done some research on it after people kept bringing it up. Meshtastic works better in rural areas, but fails badly often in urban areas, meshcore does better in urban areas.

 

  They are basically the same thing just they handle traffic different. Meshtastic tends to bounce around but will drop the transmission after bouncing too many times, which is why it does bad in urban environments, but works good in rural environments. Meshcore has a better system that alows the transmission to keep bouncing until it reaches it's destination, which is good if you are in an urban environment where it may be bounced between thousands of devices before reaching it's destination.

 

  Where I am at meshcore has no repeaters, meshtastic has one was out in nowhere, and adoption except on bigger ranches here is nearly non existent, so even bouncing between devices will not work well. In austin they have a massive meshcore and meshtastic network.

 

  For which one you want first try and research the repeater node and user base in your area, because with a major power or internet outage, device to device or device to repeater etc is how the texts will transmit, and if neither is in range it will go nowhere.

Thanks for the feedback, it seems that my local city started with using Meshtastic. I really wish they were using Meshcore and I would like to see us bring our surrounding cities all together on mesh. I guess once I get the hang of things I might need to just start the project on my own and then slowly grow it until people notice and start using it. I really think that for city and surrounding areas Meshcore is the way to go. With the limitation of just 7 hops with Meshtastic, I feel messages might just go a few miles and then die. I really appreciate your input. 

Take care

[BlueGrass77]

On 1/30/2026 at 6:44 PM, KBSherwood said:

Meshcore. 

IMO meshtastic has some fundamental design flaws for emergency comms or for use in populated areas. it may work well to get battery and temp info from some random piece of equipment in a field on some farm, but I had roughly a 10% success rate getting messages out on meshtastic. Meshcore requires local infrastructure (repeaters) but is a much more stable/reliable implementation. 

Hi, 

Thanks for the feedback, from a lot of the reading I have been doing I have been seeing that people say Meshtastic is better for reliability but people often go with Meshtastic for the easability. 

[KBSherwood]

12 hours ago, BlueGrass77 said:

Hi, 

Thanks for the feedback, from a lot of the reading I have been doing I have been seeing that people say Meshtastic is better for reliability but people often go with Meshtastic for the easability. 

Some of that is simply inertia, meshtastic got something like a 4 year head start on meshcore (meshcore came about after the structural issues with meshtastic became clear/wide spread) so its very likely most places will have some legacy meshtastic footprint. From a "node vs node" (apples vs apples) perspective, I see both as equally easy to setup; both have extensive firmware options available, web flash utilites that make it stupid simple, etc. The only difference comes when you are wanting to setup a meshcore repeater, and then the same rules of good RF deployment, husbandry and hygiene come into play. 

 

My honest opinion, if you are going through the trouble to purchase a companion (lora) radio and setup a node, start off with meshcore. everyone I've spoken to that uses meshcore started on meshtastic, got frustrated and made the switch (myself included.) If you find meshcore doesnt do it for you, its trivial to reload the firmware to the meshtastic version. 

[amaff]

21 hours ago, BlueGrass77 said:

it seems that my local city started with using Meshtastic. I really wish they were using Meshcore and I would like to see us bring our surrounding cities all together on mesh. 

[WRYZ926]

Meshtastic is pretty useless in my area outside of the three big cities (populations of 15,000) in my area. Most of the area is very rural with small towns spaced put between 7-12 miles apart. The three big cities are about 15-20 miles from each other. 

I've done some modeling and actual testing with Meshtastic and I can only get a range of about 6 miles and only if I use a node at least 30 feet above ground with a directional yagi antenna. Meshcore might have batter chance of good coverage but only if good repeaters are set up in every town in the area. Otherwise it will suffer from a lack of coverage too.

You can forget about any kind of good range with Meshtastic or Meshcore without any type of repeaters or a lot of nodes close enough to pass traffic.