Reticulum, a secure and anonymous mesh networking stack
github.com256 points by brogu 14 hours ago
256 points by brogu 14 hours ago
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.
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
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.
Meshtastic also doesn't really... work. Let me qualify that. You can get a couple of nodes for cheap, and you can (with a bit of work) get messages to go between them. The problem is coordination between nodes is required for the network as a whole to work. Specifically, user adjustable node -local settings can overwhelm the network for everyone else around you. Defcon "solves" this by providing firmware to flash with preconfigured settings tuned for the event. But hopefully this makes the problem obvious - in some other scenario that you might hope to use them - and TBC, my goals for a long range, non-cellular network mesh network are for connectivity during a hurricane/flood/firestorm/earthquake/tornado/etc.
An open implementation is preferred, because it drives down the cost of hardware and lets users purchase the grade of hardware they want. But if it doesn't work, an imperfect proprietary solution(s) available now > hypothetical perfect future solution.
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.
>It isn't suited for real-time chat (nevermind secure)
It is encrypted on private channels and direct messages.
>and so I think you can't really make it work while respecting transmission regulations.
I don't know from where your information's are from, but for sure not from reality. Voice encryption/scramble on Amateur-Band's is not allowed, everything else is ok.
I know what features it claims to have. The question is how well this can work on bands (US915, EU868) that very strictly limit the amount of time a device may transmit. IMHO you can't really have interactive chat on a mesh network over lora in those bands.
>I know what features it claims to have.
Yeah...no i don't think so.
>IMHO you can't really have interactive chat on a mesh network over lora in those bands.
Devices allow 10% Airtime on ISM here (EU) that's about 300 messages (with 255 characters) per hour, and yes interactive chat is possible with around 20 seconds of lag.
EDIT: I stop here, so much half knowledge that sounds educated but is in fact just wrong and TBH not even sure if i talk to a selfhosted AI.
Have a good Day.