Apache RocketMQ vs NATS
Apache RocketMQ
rocketmq.apache.orgNATS
nats.ioSide by side
| Figure | Apache RocketMQ | NATS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 8.9 (#4) | 7.4 (#29) |
| Spec score · Distributed Systems | 8.9 (#4) | 7.5 (#22) |
| Spec score · Message Queue (MQ) Software | 8.8 (#4) | 7.5 (#19) |
| Deployment | RocketMQ 5.x separates stateless Proxy from storage and compute so those layers can scale independently. | NATS is designed for distributed systems and edge deployments, and supports topology growth using leaf nodes and superclusters. |
| Messaging patterns | The platform supports publish/subscribe, request/reply and continuous event-streaming patterns. | NATS supports pub/sub, request/reply, and persistent streaming through JetStream. |
| Security | RocketMQ provides ACL and TLS, but operators must configure ACL or restrict access to trusted networks; the security guide warns that ACL is not enabled by default. | NATS documents authentication, subject-level authorization, TLS encryption, and isolated accounts for multitenancy. |
Plans
Apache RocketMQ
- Apache RocketMQFree
- Apache RocketMQ open-source distributionFree
In their own words
Apache RocketMQ
Apache RocketMQ is distributed middleware for asynchronous communication and publish/subscribe messaging. Its asynchronous model can separate systems and shift loads between upstream and downstream services. Messaging options include publish/subscribe, request/reply, streaming, transactional messages, FIFO ordering, filtering, and push or pull consumption. The project lists durable persistence, replication, failover, fault tolerance, high-availability options, and cross-region disaster recovery. Its site describes million-level LiteTopics per cluster and says RocketMQ has demonstrated 10M+ TPS throughput. It can run locally, in Docker, or Kubernetes, with source and binary packages available. The ecosystem includes EventBridge, MQTT, RocketMQ Connect, RocketMQ Streams, Spring, Flink, Prometheus Exporter, and a Kubernetes Operator; AI options include native MCP support, A2A compatibility, and integrations with LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, AgentScope, Dify, and Coze. The project lists gRPC SDKs for Java, Go, Python, C++, and Rust, plus gRPC, MQTT, JMS, and OpenMessaging protocols. It is free under Apache License 2.0. ACL is not enabled by default.