Apache ActiveMQ vs ZeroMQ
Apache ActiveMQ
activemq.apache.orgZeroMQ
zeromq.orgSide by side
| Figure | Apache ActiveMQ | ZeroMQ |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 9.0 (#3) | 7.4 (#31) |
| Spec score · Message Queue (MQ) Software | 9.0 (#3) | 7.4 (#22) |
| Documentation | The project publishes getting-started, protocol, feature, security, administration, FAQ and API documentation. | The ZeroMQ Guide covers use of ØMQ with more than 60 diagrams and 750 examples in 28 languages. |
| License | The product is released under the Apache License 2.0. | The libzmq library is licensed under MPL-2.0, and the site says commercial applications do not need a separate commercial license. |
| Product | Apache ActiveMQ is an open source messaging and Integration Patterns server. | ZeroMQ is a high-performance asynchronous messaging library for distributed or concurrent applications. |
| Security | The security documentation describes pluggable providers, JAAS authentication, and XML-configured authorization. | The listed libzmq and many language bindings support PLAIN and CURVE mechanisms. |
Plans
In their own words
Apache ActiveMQ
Apache ActiveMQ is an open-source messaging and Integration Patterns server for applications that exchange messages. It is self-hosted and supports OpenWire, STOMP, AMQP 1.0, MQTT 3.1, and REST. Listed client languages include Java, C, C++, C#, Ruby, Perl, Python, and PHP. Messaging features include message groups, virtual and composite destinations, wildcards, and enterprise integration patterns. ActiveMQ fully supports JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4+ messaging, including transient, persistent, transactional, and XA modes; support for Jakarta Messaging 3.1 and JMS 2.0 is partial. Transport options include in-VM, TCP, SSL, NIO, UDP, multicast, JGroups, and JXTA, with JDBC persistence and a high-performance journal. Browser access is available through a REST API and Ajax web streaming. Security options include pluggable providers, JAAS authentication, XML-configured authorization, and user, group, and destination permissions. ActiveMQ Classic costs nothing under the Apache License 2.0.
ZeroMQ
ZeroMQ is a free, open-source asynchronous messaging library for developers building distributed or concurrent applications. A system using it can run without a dedicated broker, with patterns such as publish-subscribe, request-reply and client-server. It carries messages over transports including TCP, in-process and inter-process communication, multicast and WebSocket. The project lists language bindings and libraries for C, C++, C#, Dart, Erlang, F#, Go, Haskell, Java, Node.js, Perl, Python, Ruby, Rust and Zig. Supported protocols also include ZMTP, UDP, IPC, PGM, NORM and TIPC, and delivery guarantees are configurable. The project says libzmq and many bindings support PLAIN and CURVE security mechanisms. libzmq is licensed under MPL-2.0; the project says closed-source commercial applications do not need a separate commercial license. Installation guidance covers macOS, Linux distributions and Windows. One documented constraint affects Go’s zmq4 wrapper: it requires ZeroMQ and development files to be installed and cannot be cross-compiled. ZeroMQ is self-hosted and listed at free.