this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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Do note though that MeshCore is proprietary and has a licensing cost to unlock all of its features whereas Meshtastic is open source and free as in freedom.
I could be off the mark here, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. I believe Meshtastic has trademarks on the name and logo, and they went so far as to shut down a project that was attempting to allow a device to switch between Meshtastic and Meshcore firmwares.
On the other hand, Meshcore is all open, however the client apps are closed source and on a sort of fremium model aimed at supporting the developer. Mobile apps have a 10 second wait to admin router nodes, which can be removed by a one time fee ($9, I think?). And then there's a more feature rich firmware for the LilyGo T-Deck (cool standalone Blackberry-like device) which has a paid option.
I'd like to see open source community developed apps, and I don't think there's anything to stop anyone from writing new ones, other than the fact that the existing ones work well and the paid features make for a cheap an easy way to support the project.
If I'm wrong about any of that, I hope someone else with a better understanding can chime in.
Why would you call closed source client apps "open"?
I suppose I worded that poorly. I meant that the firmware and protocol are open while the Android/iOS apps are not. My intent was to clarify what was open/closed, not obfuscate.
Directly from MeshCore's docs:
Like I said, I'd prefer to see those closed bits also being developed openly and as a community, and there's nothing to stop anyone from that endeavor. I also get that the mobile app dev has put in a lot of work on both the closed and open source pieces of the project, and he's gotta eat.