LoRa vs LoRaWAN vs Meshtastic — The Architecture Most People Get Wrong

#architecture #iot #networking #systemdesign

This is an excerpt.

Read the full technical analysis:
https://www.vladavramut.com/articles/lora-vs-lorawan-vs-meshtastic.html

LoRa, LoRaWAN, and Meshtastic are constantly confused — even by technically competent users.

They are treated as interchangeable tools for “long-range wireless,” when in reality they live at completely different layers of the communications stack and solve fundamentally different problems.

This confusion is not academic.

It is the single biggest reason real-world deployments fail.

People build systems on the wrong abstraction layer, choose protocols that cannot support their operational requirements, and blame hardware or “radio conditions” when the architecture itself was structurally unsound from the beginning.

This article clarifies the actual layered relationship between:

• LoRa (the physical radio layer)

• LoRaWAN (the network + backend protocol)

• Meshtastic (the application-layer mesh system)

and explains why choosing between them is not a feature comparison problem — it is a system design problem.

LoRa Is Not a Network

LoRa is a radio modulation technique.

It defines how bits are converted into RF signals, how spectral spreading works, and how sensitivity trades off with throughput. It does not define addressing, routing, encryption policies, or infrastructure behavior.

In practical terms, this means RF physics dominates everything:

• path loss over distance

• antenna gain and placement

• Fresnel zone clearance

• local noise floor

No network protocol can compensate for a negative link margin.

LoRaWAN Is a Star Network Protocol

LoRaWAN sits above LoRa at the MAC and network layer.

It defines:

• device identity and join procedures

• uplink/downlink rules

• gateway behavior

• network servers

• duty-cycle compliance

LoRaWAN assumes centralized gateways and backend infrastructure. It is well-suited for telemetry, asset tracking, and sensor fleets — but structurally incompatible with peer-to-peer coordination or decentralized messaging.

Meshtastic Is a Mesh Overlay, Not a Transport Layer

Meshtastic lives at the application + mesh routing layer.

It uses LoRa radios for transport but adds:

• multi-hop routing

• peer-to-peer messaging

• channel encryption

• decentralized node discovery

Unlike LoRaWAN, Meshtastic does not require gateways or servers — but it inherits all of LoRa’s physical and regulatory constraints and adds routing complexity that limits scalability.