Apache RocketMQ vs RisingWave
Apache RocketMQ
rocketmq.apache.org
RisingWave
risingwave.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache RocketMQ | RisingWave |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $0.23/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 3 |
| Spec score · Event Streaming Platforms | 8.9 (#2) | 8.0 (#9) |
| Deployment | RocketMQ 5.x separates stateless Proxy from storage and compute so those layers can scale independently. | Self-managed deployments support Docker, Kubernetes with Helm charts, cloud VMs, and on-premises bare-metal servers. |
| 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. | RisingWave security guidance covers TLS/SSL in transit, S3 encryption at rest, certificate or password authentication, role-based grants, and SQL-based data masking. |
| Support | The site links to community email groups, GitHub issues, and contribution guidance for help and participation. | RisingWave offers standard support on Basic, premium 24x7 support as an option on Pro, and premium support with SLA and quarterly success reviews for self-managed deployments. |
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.
RisingWave
RisingWave is a distributed SQL platform for ingesting, transforming, and serving real-time data. Its SQL interface is wire-compatible with PostgreSQL, so PostgreSQL clients, drivers, and tools can connect. New events incrementally refresh materialized views. Barrier-based checkpointing and consistent snapshots support exactly-once processing, while data is persisted in S3-compatible object storage and connector offsets are checkpointed for delivery durability. RisingWave lists 31+ native connectors, including Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Iceberg, Snowflake, BigQuery, S3, Redis, and Elasticsearch. Self-managed deployments are Apache 2.0 open source, with Docker, Kubernetes, cloud VM, and on-premises options. The hosted Basic plan is $0.23 a month, pay-as-you-go, limited to 64 cores and available in select regions; a free plan and 7-day trial are also listed. Basic includes standard support. Premium 24x7 support can be purchased with Pro, while self-managed deployments offer premium support with an SLA and quarterly success reviews. Listed platforms include API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, and web.