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Knit vs Meshtastic
The phones you already carry, the reach of LoRa, and how Knit brings them together.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Knit gets a conversation going with the phones already around you. Meshtastic brings the reach of dedicated LoRa radios. Both apps are open source and work with no internet required.
Knit 2.5.0 brings the two together. Pair a Meshtastic board over Bluetooth to extend direct messages and the public Nearby room across longer hops. Nearby Knit phones share that reach, so you can add radios where your group needs them.
| Feature | Knit | Meshtastic |
|---|---|---|
| Works with no internet | Yes | Yes |
| Works with just the phones you already have1 | Yes | No, each person needs a LoRa radio |
| Kilometres of range per hop2 | Yes, with a Meshtastic radio | Yes |
| Pairs with a Meshtastic board | Yes, over Bluetooth | Yes, that is what it runs on |
| Multi-hop mesh — messages relay beyond your own radio | Yes | Yes |
| Open room with everyone nearby3 | Yes | Yes |
| End-to-end encrypted direct & group chats | Yes | DMs yes; channels share one key |
| Forward secrecy4 | Yes | No |
| Photos, GIFs & voice notes | Yes | No, text and location |
| Live positions on a map5 | No | Yes |
| Store & forward for offline peers | Yes | Router nodes only |
| On-device AI moderation | Yes | No |
| Works over the internet6 | Yes, via optional relays | Optional, via MQTT bridges |
| iPhone app | No, coming soon | Yes |
| Free, no ads, open source | Yes, GPLv3 | Yes, GPLv3 — radios cost extra |
- 1With Knit, one paired radio can serve the phones in a nearby group. Put a board with each distant group to connect them over LoRa.
- 2Pair radios at each end to carry direct messages and the public Nearby room across kilometre-scale hops. Actual range depends on terrain and setup. Group chats and attachments use the phone mesh or optional relays.
- 3Knit's Nearby room is an open broadcast, plaintext by design — like talking out loud in a crowd. Meshtastic's default channel ships with a publicly known key, which comes to the same thing.
- 4Knit rotates keys per block of messages, not per message, and a chat with someone on an older Knit build falls back to the previous static-key scheme, which has none. Spent keys are deleted, so mesh traffic recorded today can't be decrypted later. Meshtastic's own documentation states it does not implement forward secrecy.
- 5Knit sends your location once, when you choose to: pick it from a chat's menu, the other phone gets a card that opens in any maps app, and Knit reads your position only between that tap and the send. Meshtastic's map comes from radios broadcasting their positions.
- 6Knit's Internet relays are opt-in and carry only existing direct and group conversations, as sealed frames the relay can't read. No accounts, no discovery, and you can run your own. The Nearby room stays radio-only.
Where Knit wins: the mesh you already have
Start with the phones in your pockets. Every Knit phone can carry messages onward, so more people nearby means more possible routes. Your mesh, behind the nearby count, shows what your phone has carried for others; every number is counted on the phone and stays there. Friends can join by installing the app, and a paired Meshtastic radio can extend the group's reach when you want to go farther.
Bring photos, GIFs, voice notes and files into the conversation, with reactions, replies and profiles to make it your own. Direct and group chats are end-to-end encrypted, with contact verification by safety number or QR code. The public Nearby room is an open broadcast with on-device text and image moderation. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi carry the full conversation; LoRa adds reach for short direct messages and room posts.
That makes Knit easy to share at a festival, campsite or neighbourhood gathering. People can start with the app and add radios as their plans grow.
Where they meet: one board covers a group
A paired Meshtastic board shares its reach with the Knit phones around it. Short direct messages and public room posts can cross LoRa, then continue locally over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The people nearby keep chatting in the same app.
Put one board with each distant group and Knit can connect them over the long hop. Direct messages retain their encryption, while the public Nearby room remains an open broadcast. Group chats, attachments and longer messages use the phone mesh or an optional Internet relay.
You control which conversations use that extra reach. Direct messages stay end-to-end encrypted over LoRa, while sender and recipient addressing, timing and size remain visible on the shared channel. The radio settings let you keep direct messages on other paths while the public room continues over LoRa. Knit also spends the board's airtime only where it is needed: a message Bluetooth or Wi-Fi has already delivered, or a direct message a relay is already carrying, stays off the radio.
Where Meshtastic shines: maps and radio projects
A single LoRa hop covers kilometres on a good day, and the radios sip power for days on a charge. Put a solar repeater on a hill and a valley is covered. Add live GPS positions on a shared map, clients for iPhone, Android and the web, optional MQTT bridges to the internet, and one of the most active hobbyist communities in radio, and you have the obvious pick for trails, overlanding, event ops and preparedness kits — places where distance beats everything and planning is part of the fun.
If setting up radios is part of the fun, Meshtastic gives you plenty to explore. Knit makes it easy to share that work with friends: prepare a board for each nearby group and the rest can join from their phones.
Security, side by side
Since firmware 2.5, Meshtastic encrypts direct messages with per-node public keys, while channels are sealed with a single shared key — everyone holding the channel key reads everything on it, and the default public channel's key is public knowledge. Knit's sealed side is direct and group chats — end-to-end, down to the mentions and image attachments, with per-member keys in groups and in-person verification by safety number or QR code. Its open side is the public Nearby room: an open broadcast, like talking out loud in a crowd, and Knit never pretends otherwise.
Forward secrecy is the sharpest difference. Meshtastic's own documentation says it has none — traffic captured today can be decrypted whenever a channel key or node key leaks later. Knit's direct and group chats rotate keys as the conversation runs and delete the spent ones — per block of messages, not per message, with a fallback to the old static-key scheme toward peers on older Knit builds — so recorded mesh traffic stays shut. Messages are also encrypted at rest under a hardware-backed key that stays out of cloud backups, so reading them takes unlocking the device, not stealing it.
Knit preserves direct-message encryption across the LoRa hop. The shared radio channel still exposes addressing, timing and size at longer range. You can choose whether direct messages use it while keeping the public room on LoRa.
The browser demo shows the hop-by-hop idea without installing anything: knock out a cell tower, then walk a message across a crowd.
Choose Meshtastic if…
- Your group plans ahead and wants the whole mesh to be radios, with no phone in the path at all.
- You want live positions on a shared map: trails, overlanding, event ops, search parties.
- You enjoy building the network itself — solar repeaters, MQTT bridges, telemetry — not just chatting over it.
- There are iPhones in the group. Meshtastic has clients for both today; Knit for iPhone is still in development.
Choose Knit if…
- The mesh has to exist right now, out of the phones people already carry.
- You want photos, GIFs, reactions, history and encrypted group chats on the phone mesh.
- You want to share a radio's reach with nearby friends, with one board at each end of the long hop.
- Forward secrecy matters to you — radio traffic recorded today shouldn't be readable later.
- Everyone nearby should be able to join — no purchase, no flashing, no setup.
Common questions
Can Knit and Meshtastic talk to each other?
Yes. Knit 2.5.0 pairs with a Meshtastic board over Bluetooth. Short direct messages keep their encryption over LoRa, and the public Nearby room gains the same longer reach. Knit also brings your board's primary Meshtastic channel into its own room, where you can read and post to the local radio mesh. Compatible Meshtastic nodes can help carry Knit traffic; reading Knit direct messages still requires Knit.
Which one has more range?
Knit gives you both kinds of reach. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connect nearby phones, and messages hop onward through the people between you. Add Meshtastic boards at each end for LoRa hops that can span kilometres, depending on terrain and setup. Each board shares that connection with the nearby Knit phones.
Is Meshtastic more secure than Knit?
They differ most on groups and on forward secrecy. Both encrypt direct messages end-to-end; in Knit that extends to group chats too — direct and group conversations are sealed per member, down to mentions and image attachments — where a Meshtastic channel shares one key among everyone on it, and the default channel's key is public knowledge. And Meshtastic's own documentation states it has no forward secrecy, so captured traffic is readable if a key leaks later; Knit rotates keys per block of messages and deletes the spent ones, falling back to the old static-key scheme only toward peers on older Knit builds. Treat the open surfaces on both — Knit's Nearby room and Meshtastic's default channel — as talking out loud. One thing the bridge does not change: a Knit message crossing a LoRa radio is sealed exactly as it always was, while its addressing travels in the clear on a public channel at kilometre range, which is why Knit gives that its own switch.
Can I run both?
Yes. Knit can use a Meshtastic board for messaging while preserving its primary channel. You can also read and post to that channel inside Knit. When you want to return the board to its previous setup, Restore puts back the settings Knit changed, including its name.
Which one belongs in an emergency kit?
They work well together for keeping your group in touch: Knit on the phones, with a Meshtastic board at each end where you need longer hops. Nearby friends can share the radio connection. Keep a separate way to contact emergency services; neither adds a rescue service to the mesh.
We checked the Meshtastic facts on this page against the project's own documentation at meshtastic.org; the date above says when. Meshtastic is an independent project — Meshtastic® is a registered trademark of Meshtastic LLC — and is not affiliated with Knit. Spotted something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it.
Product names on these pages are the trademarks of their respective owners and are used only to identify the apps being compared. None of those projects is affiliated with, or has endorsed, Knit.
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