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Memfault vs Golioth

How Memfault and Golioth differ on target hardware, rollback, deployment and cost.

MemfaultGolioth
TypeMCU observability + OTAMCU cloud
TargetsMCU + embedded LinuxMCU (Zephyr-first)
DeploymentSaaSSaaS
RollbackCohort-based staged rollout; halt on crash-rate regressionManual release targeting; rollback by publishing a prior artifact
How it worksDevices upload coredumps, metrics and reboot reasons. Releases go to cohorts, and the crash signal tells you whether to continue or stop — which is the part every other platform leaves to you. OTA is one feature of an observability product, not the whole product.One consumption meter instead of plans: $0.25 per connected device per month, $0.0095 per megabyte of OTA traffic, and separate rates for logs and streaming data. Every account gets the same features, which makes small fleets cheap and makes cost forecasting arithmetic rather than negotiation.
Pricing*Free to 10 dev devices; from $3,495/mo$50 free credits; $0.25/device/mo + $0.0095/MB
Free tierYesYes
Open sourceFirmware SDK (Apache-2.0)Device SDK (Apache-2.0)
Best forTeams who need to know why devices failZephyr projects that want predictable unit cost

Memfault

  • Coredump analysis on constrained MCUs is genuinely hard and they do it well
  • Rollouts driven by real crash data, not hope
  • Strong chip-vendor integrations
  • Paid tiers start far above hobby or small-fleet budgets
  • Observability is the product; OTA alone is an expensive way to buy it

Golioth

  • Cheapest credible option at small and mid scale
  • Cost is calculable before you commit
  • Deep Zephyr integration
  • Zephyr-centric — other RTOSes are less travelled
  • Metered bytes need watching on chatty fleets

Bottom line

Choose Memfault for teams who need to know why devices fail. Choose Golioth for zephyr projects that want predictable unit cost.

* Published list pricing (vendor pricing pages, August 2026).