Apache RocketMQ vs Upstash QStash
Apache RocketMQ
rocketmq.apache.org
Upstash QStash
upstash.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache RocketMQ | Upstash QStash |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $1/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 6 |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 8.9 (#4) | 7.6 (#26) |
| Support | The site links to community email groups, GitHub issues, and contribution guidance for help and participation. | Upstash says customers on any subscription plan can contact its team at [email protected] for technical support, questions, and feedback. |
| What it does | Apache RocketMQ is a distributed messaging and streaming platform designed for low latency, high throughput, reliability and very large scale. | QStash is a serverless messaging and scheduling solution that acts as a middleman between an application and an API to provide delivery guarantees and automatic retries. |
Plans
Apache RocketMQ
- Apache RocketMQFree
- Apache RocketMQ open-source distributionFree
Upstash QStash
- FreeFree
- Pay as You Go$1 a month
- Fixed 1M$180 a month
- Prod Pack$200 a month
- Fixed 10M$420 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
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.
Upstash QStash
Upstash QStash has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.