How Eclipse hawkBit and Mender differ on target hardware, rollback, deployment and cost.
| Eclipse hawkBit | Mender | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | OSS update server | Linux OTA |
| Targets | Any (device-agnostic) | Embedded Linux |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | SaaS + self-hosted |
| Rollback | None built in — the device client decides | A/B partitions with automatic rollback on failed boot |
| How it works | A rollout and artifact management server, deliberately not a device agent. It handles targets, distribution sets, staged rollouts and reporting over a plain HTTP protocol; how the device applies the update, and whether it can roll back, is entirely your side of the contract. | Writes the new root filesystem to the inactive partition, reboots into it, and rolls back automatically if the device fails to check in. Delta updates and phased rollouts sit in the paid tiers; the update mechanism itself is open source and self-hostable. |
| Pricing* | Free | OSS free; hosted from $34/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | EPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 (client + server) |
| Best for | Full control with no per-device fee | Linux fleets that must never brick |
Choose Eclipse hawkBit for full control with no per-device fee. Choose Mender for linux fleets that must never brick.
* Published list pricing (vendor pricing pages, August 2026).