# Meshtastic 129 Hacker News commenters recommended Meshtastic and 103 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.5 years (7 owners). **Verdict:** Free LoRa mesh messaging that works off-grid without SIMs or infrastructure and reaches long distances from good spots, though it congests and drops messages in busy areas. ## Why people recommend it - Works without infrastructure or subscriptions (4 comments): "We often sail in places where there's no communication infrastructure, or it is prohibitively expensive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46096067)) "This all works great with no local SIM cards or other subscriptions or infrastructure needed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070906)) "I've always thought that meshtastic (or something similar) would be great for cruisers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48076408)) - Impressive range with good placement (4 comments): "it's a an interesting technical hobby for those that may get excited when their little 0.25W radio hits a repeater 80km away" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063132)) "You can get insane distances with great reliability if you place a node strategically on the highest point around." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083578)) "The current record for ground-to-ground link on meshtastic is a staggering 331km, pretty insane" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071582)) - Fun hobby to tinker with (5 comments): "it's a an interesting technical hobby for those that may get excited when their little 0.25W radio hits a repeater 80km away" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063132)) "I see it as a thing that is fun to play around with now, but which may become critical at some point in the future." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065390)) "Fun to pop on every so often and say hello, see who has new gear, and gauge the activity levels around me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009172)) - Great for festivals, camping, hiking (4 comments): "I love that you can show up to, say, a music fest with a few Meshtastic radios and voila, instant mesh." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48305166)) "Meshtastic is a more noisy protocol which is perfect for camping and hiking in small groups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46436203)) "Useful for things like music festivals, campgrounds, having a mesh node in your camper van" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077487)) ## What people warn about - Congests and fails in dense areas (6 comments): "Meshtastic is horrible in a metro area. The area I live in has a huge user group and it's almost impossible to get a message across more than 3 nodes reliably." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48075457)) "Meshtastic simultaneously has too few nodes for most people to see many reliably, and has a scaling problem where too many nodes where saturate the network." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307581)) "the current architecture, far from supporting hundreds or thousands, won't even support dozens in a small area with meaningful traffic being exchanged" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424154)) - Unreliable message delivery (5 comments): "Meshtastic is horrible in a metro area. The area I live in has a huge user group and it's almost impossible to get a message across more than 3 nodes reliably." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48075457)) "I live in a fairly populous city with a bunch of meshtastic nodes, and can't get a message accross from me to my friend who lives one hop away." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46418397)) "because of a few misconfigured nodes, the network was always congested, slow, bloated with messages arriving less than 50% of the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652580)) - Too few nearby nodes (3 comments): "Meshtastic simultaneously has too few nodes for most people to see many reliably, and has a scaling problem where too many nodes where saturate the network." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307581)) "I'm having trouble getting a connection to any other nodes because there isn't a critical mass of other people running mesh nodes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48062894)) "right now it's just a way to find and talk with other radio/decentralized/emergency-response/the-net-is-doomed-we-need-alternatives nerds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48066832)) - Easily jammed or disrupted (2 comments): "They aren't useful in antigovernment scenarios because they are trivial to jam and deny use of." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647488)) "Meshtastic is both extremely range limited and trivial to DDOS. It's a fun toy protocol but it's not resistant to nation state disruption at all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46642011)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [MeshCore](https://hackerapproved.com/p/meshcore.md): 78 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Meshtastic", https://hackerapproved.com/p/meshtastic/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).