Linux (Yocto)
Linux SoC
arm64 armv7 x86_64
Stable ~2 MB
Why OTA-Pulse?
Production firmware OTA is a solved problem — until it isn't. Here's how OTA-Pulse compares to the alternatives, and why we built it anyway.
How OTA-Pulse compares
An honest look at the capabilities that matter most for production embedded fleets.
| Capability | OTA-Pulse | Mender | RAUC | SWUpdate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artifact signing | supported | supported | supported | supported note 1 |
| Delta updates | not supported note 8 | supported | partially supported note 2 | partially supported note 2 |
| A/B partition rollback | supported | supported | supported | not supported note 3 |
| Coredump capture | supported | not supported | not supported | not supported |
| Multi-tenant RBAC | supported | partially supported note 4 | not supported | not supported |
| Hosted / cloud offering | supported | supported note 5 | not supported | not supported |
| Open source (OSS) core | partially supported note 7 | partially supported note 6 | supported | supported |
✓ Supported
~ Partial / conditional
✗ Not available
- 1.
- SWUpdate supports PKCS#11 / RSA / ECDSA signing but configuration is manual; no built-in key-management UI.
- 2.
- RAUC and SWUpdate support delta via external casync/bsdiff tools; integration requires extra toolchain setup.
- 3.
- SWUpdate can write to two slots but does not manage boot-flag switching itself; requires a custom U-Boot script or Barebox integration.
- 4.
- Mender RBAC is Enterprise-tier only; the open-source server (mender-server) has no multi-tenant access control.
- 5.
- Mender Hosted is a commercial SaaS; free tier is limited to 10 devices.
- 6.
- Mender's device-side agent is Apache 2.0; the server (mender-server) is SSPL-licensed, which restricts offering it as a hosted service.
- 7.
- OTA-Pulse's device-side agent is Apache 2.0 and available at github.com/binaryblack/OTA-Pulse; the server and console are proprietary and not source-available.
- 8.
- OTA-Pulse does not support delta or differential updates on either platform today; every device receives the complete image.
Supported platforms
OTA-Pulse ships on embedded Linux today. Adding a platform to our source of truth makes it appear here automatically.
Linux (Buildroot)
Linux SoC
arm64 armv7 x86_64
Stable ~2 MB
Get started in 5 minutes.
Register your first device, push a firmware update, and watch it land — without touching a serial console.
Open source agent · Self-host or cloud · No vendor lock-in