I've never seen a bigger network with Reticulum in the wild. And I'm deep into Mesh stuff with several local communities.
One of the main reasons of the communities not jumping onto the ship was that it's mostly a one-man-project and most of its Git changes are "Update" "Better Version" "Update" "Cleanup" which makes it basically impossible to track changes.
Here is what I'm confused about: There is no published protocol/spec. It's nominally for radios like LoRa (Semtech) which are programmed with microcontrollers. To run it, you need Python software, or more recently, std Rust, both of which can't be used on the devices that would make sense for the hardware.
Sounds like you’re looking for the RNode firmware
I hadn't heard of this. It sounds like then you'd need a dedicated radio co-processor that is just running their firmware. Then, connect to it via [SPI?] to your main MCU or similar.
You can run it on a common board like a Heltec LoRa 32 (can’t remember if it supports v3 or just v2). I played around with it some, but mostly stick with Meshtastic.
Reticulum is a production-ready full network stack. Cryptography and anonymity are first-class citizens there. It is transport-layer agnostic, not just tailored for LoRa. I like it, but is see two main problems that prevent the wide adaption, and they are related:
1. The library is written in Python. If you want to design phone apps, Linux server daemons in C, or embedded software (for example for the Lilygo T-Deck) this is a bad choice. Somehow doable (execpt for embedded), but no fun. A small lib with C API and C ABI would be better.
2. Most of the end user software has a horrible UI. But it gets better with software like the Android messenger Columba (https://github.com/torlando-tech/columba).
If we would solve 1., we would have more end user software.
Currently, there are 4 project who try to solve 1. by writing a Reticulum lib with a low-level language, everybody does it in their favorite language and on their own, of course: C++, Zig, Rust, Go
The Rust implementation from Beechat seems the most mature. But I did not see it used in the wild, outside of Beechat's own devices.
Surprisingly, the Rust impl is Std only, so it doesn't solve 1
Surprised to see nobody mentioned Yggdrasil [0]. It's a routing protocol with cryptographic, non-topologic addresses, which could be used on top of TCP/IP or any alternative stack, like LoRA.
I've been using it as a Tailscale replacement for a few weeks, including hosting game servers, with about equivalent latency, and it seemed pretty stable.
How does Reticulum differ?
It is very stable. I have been using it for several years for exactly this purpose without any problems. It simply runs in the background and does its job so reliably that I simply forget about it for long periods of time.
For starters, Reticulum can communicate over a Yggdrasil network natively, but no one has yet implemented a Yggdrasil link over Reticulum as far as I am aware.
A Yggdrasil link is an IP tunnel. Reticulum has its own network protocol instead of IP because IP would not work well over slow and low-bandwidth connections. I think tunneling IP through Reticulum would cause only headaches.
it hit version 1.0.0 this summer and it works!
to get started easily, check out meshchat:
https://github.com/liamcottle/reticulum-meshchat
or sideband on android:
https://github.com/markqvist/Sideband
you can already send photos and voice chat over lora, and when lora runs out of bandwidth or if there’s no link, the protocol can seamlessly go over any other link type.
Practically, my biggest concern is deliver ability
> The Zen Way: "I am <327c1b2f87c9353e01769b01090b18f2>. Wherever I am, my peers can reach me".
> When links are intermittent and latency is measured in minutes or hours, "real-time" is an illusion. Reticulum doesn't encourage Store and Forward as a mere fallback, but as a primary mode of existence. You write a message, it propagates when it can, and it arrives when it arrives.
Let's say A and B are talking.
A sends message A1.
B receives message A1.
B sends message B1.
A receives message B1.
A sends message A2.
Something happens and B doesn't receive it.
A sends A3.
B receives A3.
Later, B receives A2.
Now what does B do with this information? Does the envelope contain all the metadata about when A sent it so B client software can order the messages properly?
So not this Reticulum networking stack: https://github.com/Hubs-Foundation/reticulum
Sounds like someone is a fan of Anathem!
That's an amazing book, and I highly recommend it, for anyone who isn't familiar.
Popular in 2022 (95 points, 15 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30870187
... urgently needed now ;)
I just happened to recently learn about Reticulum from another part of the internet and find it fascinating. Am I correct in thinking that it can basically run on anything that can run arbitrary code and the ability to talk to another device? (seems like it'd even work over serial if one had the determination to make it work)
- If it runs Python and pip/pipx, and you can pull in the required packages via pip/pipx, it'll run Reticulum.
- On 32-bit x86 platforms it has to build the PyCA/cryptography module, but works fine after it does that.
- Reticulum supports a number physical interfaces, serial is one of them. It of course has the "RNode" intefaces for LoRa radios. For Ethernet, there is "AutoInterface" which uses IPv6 autoconfiguration for peer discovery and IPv6 UDP for transport but doesn't rely on DNS, DHCP, or anything else. If your PC, phone, or other involved devices on the same network have IPv6 enabled and no filtering is happening on layer 2 then it's dead simple - any device there will see announces from others and be able to transact with you not doing much more than spinning up MeshChat.
- Other interface types are TCP client, TCP server, IPv4 UDP, I2P, and a pipe interface. The pipe interface is interesting as it's basically stdin/stdout to an executable of your choice, so you can use that to make Reticulum available over really anything you could dream up, such as an SSH tunnel.
The only fully-functional stack currently available requires Python >= 3.8, which is the main limitation to where it will run. But there’s still a lot you can do with that!
there is a pretty compatible rust implementation as well which claims to target microcontrollers https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/Reticulum-rs
Did you use it? I've never seen it used outside of Beechat's own devices.
so you mean it would work from Iran?
How does this differ from meshtastic? Is meshtastic just more chat based and this is more generic?
Reticulum is a full network stack with full user anonymity. You can integrate it in every app that needs P2P network connections and that can live with a slow connection. Reticulum is an alternative to TCP/IP and UDP/IP, using a mesh.
Meshtastic and Meshcore are mesh messengers, focusing on mesh text messages.
meshtastic is chat and lora only. its protocol is super inefficient and unreliable, and only can handle a maximum of 7 hops across the mesh.
The Software shall not be used, directly or indirectly, in the creation of an artificial intelligence, machine learning or language model training dataset, including but not limited to any use that contributes to the training or development of such a model or algorithm.
Mark's Reticulum implementation has a strong ideolgical background. Not just the oppositon to AI. If anybody is interested in what drives the developer, here's the manifesto: https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/blob/master/Zen%20of%...
I saw this too and immediately thought: well, they published this on GitHub which surely has a clause that grants it a license to use the code for training Copilot for Microsoft at a minimum, sooo should've published on another Git platform.
> This repository is a public mirror. All development is happening elsewhere.
So if I have code on a personal (but publicly exposed) git server with a license that includes the above quoted terms, and someone decides they want to be helpful and publish a public read-only mirror of my code to GitHub, then they’re allowed to accept that license on my behalf? I never did a thing and yet I’m now in a contract with Microsoft? How does this work legally?
Not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure:
1. Microsoft does not gain the license, but will be able to argue that they aren't intentionally committing copyright infringement in the cases where that distinction matters.
2. If Microsoft does something resulting in damages because they thought they had a license, their indemnification clause kicks in and they can recoup those damages from the user who uploaded it (to the extent that that user doesn't go bankrupt anyways)
3. Likely none of this matters because your license can't prevent activities that weren't prohibited by copyright in the first place, and training doesn't appear to be a prohibited activity at least under US law.
When code is published on GitHub, GitHub itself is not bound by the public-facing license, but rather license grants the uploader aggress to as part of the terms of service. That points to the uploader as a responsible party.
In practice though, none of that is even remotely enforceable.
Not sure GitHub has such a clause. Just looked at their terms and don't see it.
See term D.4., the relevant part of which is
> You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like [...] or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users
It doesn't matter what the original purpose of the terms was it matters what they do.
Looks great. Does it need all users to install Reticulum, or app/service prividers (online shop etc) on Reticulum can make their services available for access via browsers?
all users need to be running the reticulum network stack to be able to send, receive, and route packets.
reticulum itself describes the network stack (like tcp/ip) and it has its own protocols like LXMF for messaging and LXST for streaming. applications can be built on top of these protocols.
it’s different than IP, instead of addresses, each node has an identity that’s a cryptographic key pair that you send messages to, the routing happens in the background regardless of network topology or diversity of link types.
you CAN send reticulum packets over a TCP/IP adapter and thus across the normal Internet (there are a lot of testnet and community nodes that are accessed this way), but the protocol also seamlessly bridges over any interface (lora, bluetooth, HAM radio, etc) that is attached to the node.
so like, there could be a message sent over lora to a base station that relays it to another server through the internet, then that server sends it out over a ham radio link to another computer somewhere else, etc.
all the message sender has to know is the pubkey of the node they want to talk to, and the network figures out how to establish a link.
128 hops maximum.
the prerolled binaries of the aforementioned software include the network stack and easy enough presets to find content from other nodes and people to talk to.
This is cool, I’ve been playing around Offline Protocol’s DORS SDK that they put out last month and it’s been great for cross platform whereas Bitchat’s Noise setup was a little more cumbersome to get started. Need to dig more into LoRa meshes.
Anybody have any experience running this on a tdeck? I'm kinda toying with the idea of ordering a couple just to play with.
It is not yet like meshtastic in that. Rnode is more of a lora modem than a lora server. There is a micro recticlum project but not out yet.
Ahh, yes. I see that now. I appreciate the correction.
Such a nasty name for a good project ;-;
The name comes from Neal Stephenson's book Anathem
Sounds too close to "rectum".
And, as of 3 weeks ago, the one man is "stepping back from all public-facing interaction with this project".[1]
Further, "Occasional updates may appear at unpredictable intervals, but there will be no support, no responses to issues, no discussions, and no community management in this or any other public venue."
Nothing salacious here - just another one man open source project with a burnt out maintainer :(.
[1] - https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/discussions/1069
The reticulum dev have been trying to quit for years and have been quite open about his own personal struggles.
More recently:
- v1.0.0 was supposed to be the time his involvement is over [0]
- 6 months later [1]
> This is not a temporary break. It's not "see you after some rest", but a recognition that the current model is fundamentally incompatible with my life, my health, and my reality.
- But he pushed 3 releases since his last message [2]
It is like he is trying to quit somking.
I am not sure what the problem is exactly but it seems someone need to take over and honor the fantastic work he has done over the years.
- [0] https://unsigned.io/articles/2025_05_09_The_End_Is_Nigh_For_...
- [1] https://unsigned.io/articles/2025_12_28_Carrier_Switch.html
- [2] https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/releases
it’s a bummer, but according to folks in the matrix chat, he’s still developing and in touch with some of the community devs.
Unsurprisingly:
> To the small group of people who has actually been here, and understood what this work was and what it cost - you already know where to find me if it actually matters.
>To everyone else: This is where we part ways. No hard feelings. It's just time.
https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/blob/master/MIRROR.md
So what mesh stuff do you recommend for the uninitiated?
In the LoRA/radio device sense, Meshtastic[1] is probably the easiest to get started with. It's the biggest player in the space, has devices that come pre-installed and configured, the most likely chance of making contact with someone else, etc. MeshCore[2] is the other major player. It's newer and tends to have been adopted by communities that have run into issues with large Meshtastic networks.
If you meant PC-based mesh networking, I'll leave someone more knowledgeable to speak about that :).
[1] - https://meshtastic.org/
[2] - https://meshcore.co.uk/
I've had some experience with both Meshtastic and Reticulum, and Meshtastic software was mostly unusable for me even with 3-node networks. E.g. a node sends a message and gets a successful delivery notification from the receiver but the receiver fails to display the message to the user. Reticulum was mostly working fine. Haven't tried MeshCore yet.
Lora, especially on regulated bands that are the most used ones, is designed for very small, very infrequent messages. It isn't suited for real-time chat (nevermind secure) and so I think you can't really make it work while respecting transmission regulations.
There are lora modules that work on the 2.4GHz ISM band but then you probably need to consider whether Bluetooth is not a simpler choice if range is not the no. 1 concern.