One platform, two kinds of device

OTA-Pulse manages embedded Linux fleets and microcontroller fleets from the same organization and the same account. They are not identical products — here is exactly what each one does.

Compare capabilities

Embedded Linux

Stable

Yocto · Buildroot · ARM64, ARMv7, x86_64

The production-hardened path. A ~2 MB Go agent, signed A/B root filesystem updates with automatic rollback, fleet monitoring, coredump capture and audited remote SSH.

Explore embedded Linux →

Microcontrollers

Beta

ESP-IDF · Zephyr · Cortex-M, Xtensa, RISC-V

The same fleet, firmware and campaign workflow for MCU targets, driven by a heap-free C SDK. Managed under the same organization as your Linux devices, billed per active device.

Explore MCU →

What works on which platform

Every capability we ship, and honestly where it does and does not apply.

Capability support by platform: embedded Linux and microcontroller (MCU)
Capability	Embedded Linux Yocto · Buildroot	MCU ESP-IDF · Zephyr — beta
Over-the-Air Updates	✓	✓
Fleet Management	✓	✓
Phased Rollouts ¹	✓	~
Cryptographic Signing ²	✓	✓
Automatic Rollback ³	✓	✓
Device Monitoring ⁴	✓	~
Offline Updates ⁵	~	✓
Coredump Collection ⁶	✓	✗
Remote SSH	✓	✗
Role-Based Access	✓	✓
Audit Logging	✓	✓

✓ Supported ~ Partial — see note ✗ Not available

1.: On MCU, campaigns advance to the next phase on their own once a phase succeeds, but that automatic advance is still in beta.
2.: On MCU, what verifies the image depends on the target: MCUboot is authoritative at boot on Zephyr (Nordic/STM32), while ESP-IDF native OTA has no bootloader check unless Secure Boot v2 is enabled. The SDK always checks the image hash, and its Ed25519 signature check is a build option.
3.: Linux uses A/B root filesystem partitions; MCU uses MCUboot dual-bank swap (or native ESP-IDF OTA) with auto-revert when the new image never confirms.
4.: On Linux this is the socmond daemon. On MCU, telemetry is an optional SDK module that is off by default and buffers in RAM, so readings can be lost across a device reboot.
5.: Both platforms can install without a server. On Linux you put the artifact on the device yourself (USB stick or local file) and run the agent's install command — there is no wireless or serial delivery path. MCU carries its own delivery transport: SMP over BLE or UART/USB, driven by the Pulse Tool field utility, so a device with no IP stack can be updated in place. A CAN and CAN-FD data plane also exists but is experimental and off by default.
6.: Crash capture is embedded-Linux only. MCU devices have no equivalent — there is no crash reporting on MCU today.

Supported targets

Each target has its own integration guide. Adding a platform to our source of truth makes it appear here automatically.

Linux (Yocto)

Linux SoC

arm64 armv7 x86_64

Stable ~2 MB

Linux (Buildroot)

Linux SoC

arm64 armv7 x86_64

Stable ~2 MB

ESP32 (ESP-IDF)

Microcontroller

xtensa riscv

Beta No heap; varies by build

Zephyr RTOS (nRF / STM32)

Microcontroller

cortex-m

Beta No heap; varies by build

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