Stech WernerWhen it comes to flying the drone, you will surely need a flight controller. While the flight controller does allow you to fly the drone, the flight controller is actually controlled by what we call the firmware, or otherwise known as the software too. It is akin to having a mobile phone which is powered by software, depending on the brand of the phone that you are getting.
And as per all software, all of these have their own features as well as distinctive functions. The world’s two most popular firmware for the flight controller is actually the cleanflight as well as the betaflight. Since you have a choice between the cleanflight and the betaflight, which of these will be more suited for you? Let us first find out what exactly is the cleanflight as well as the betaflight
What Is Cleanflight
Cleanflight is a software that is installed onto flight controllers. It can be used for all multirotor as well as the fixed-wing aircraft. As such, you can expect this open-source software to control all sorts of movement.
Here are a list of the features as well as the benefits of it.
- Superior flight performance: It is proven to be stable and responsive to your controls.
- Open-source: Since the source is on github, you can make various modifications as well as suggestions to further improvement of this source code.
- 32-bit software: Much superior to the old 8-bit infrastructure.
- Active developers: When you select a software, you have to ensure that the developers are willing to listen to real user feedback.
- Wide support: Currently, cleanflight can be used on 8 different boards, which allows you to fully customize the type of flight controller board that you wish to use.
As you can see, by having cleanflight installed, you are allowing for a wide range of tricks as well as enhanced performance when you drive the flying device around.
What Is Betaflight
Similar to the cleanflight, the betaflight is one of the most widely used firmware amongst the multirotor as well as the fixed-wing aircraft drivers. As the name suggests, it was initially a ‘beta’ version of cleanflight. Back then, Boris B. started to experiment by designing the betaflight by creating a fork out of cleanflight. The initial purpose was just to test out new features that are not present in cleanflight. As such, you can expect that the features are actually targeted towards advanced users of the devices. Eventually, after many changes to the codes and stuff, people started to realize that the betaflight does provide a higher flight stability than other firmware, and hence it started to penetrate even the beginner market.
Here are some of the features of the betaflight.
- Control camera settings: It allows you to control VTC as well as the camera setting via the flight controller itself.
- Open-source: similar to the cleanflight, betaflight completely open source.
- Flight performance: You can be assured of a superior flight performance when using betaflight in your flight controller
- Better OSD: The on-screen display does allow you to switch out profiles easily. Also, during the video feed, the OSD will display all the information that you will need. It also allows the drag-and-drop of numbers such as the battery life of the flying device itself.
- Safety features: This is something that is missing in cleanflight. With the betaflight, you can be assured of accidents being minimized due to the safety rules provided in the firmware itself. Other safety features include the shutdown of the flying device when the orientation of the motor is wrong.
So, Which Is Better?
In the fight of betaflight vs cleanflight, who is the winner? Perhaps the table below can help to shed some light into this.
| Cleanflight | Betaflight | |
| Flight Stability | Responsive but not that accurate | Extremely stable |
| OSD | Fixed view | Option to customize your view |
| Hardware | Uses generic hardware | Very specific hardware has been designed for the betaflight |
| Compatibility | Compatible with most flight controllers | Compatible with a lot of hardware as well as flight peripherals |
| Ease of use | For everyone | For advanced riders |
Wrapping Things Up
Though it might seem that we are rooting for the betaflight, it is actually down to your individual choice of which is better. There might be users who simply want to fly the vehicle out of the box rather than spending time tweaking the settings. On the other hand, there are some people who love to build and customize settings, and hence the betaflight would be more suitable.
