NATS vs RabbitMQ
NATS
nats.io
RabbitMQ
rabbitmq.comSide by side
| Figure | NATS | RabbitMQ |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Message Queue (MQ) Software | 7.5 (#19) | 8.5 (#6) |
| Spec score · Distributed Systems | 7.5 (#22) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 7.4 (#29) | 8.4 (#8) |
| Deployment | NATS is designed for distributed systems and edge deployments, and supports topology growth using leaf nodes and superclusters. | RabbitMQ can run on cloud infrastructure, on-premises, local machines, physical or virtual hardware, containers and IaaS providers. |
| Integrations | The download page lists connectors and utilities for Apache Flink, Apache Spark, AWS, Elasticsearch, Fluent Bit, MongoDB, Prometheus, and other tools. | RabbitMQ provides client libraries for Java, .NET/C#, Erlang, and other languages, and offers a community Docker image and Kubernetes operators. |
| Messaging patterns | NATS supports pub/sub, request/reply, and persistent streaming through JetStream. | RabbitMQ supports routing, filtering, streaming, and federation to direct messages from publishers to one or more consumers. |
Plans
RabbitMQ
- Open-source RabbitMQFree
- Open Source RabbitMQ ServerFree
- Tanzu RabbitMQPriced on request
- VMware Tanzu RabbitMQPriced on request
In their own words
RabbitMQ
RabbitMQ is an open source messaging and streaming broker for application communication, including distributed microservices, real-time data, and IoT. Publishers can route messages to one or more consumers using routing, filtering, streaming, and federation. Message acknowledgements and replication across a cluster support delivery reliability, and delivery guarantees are configurable. Supported protocols include AMQP 0-9-1, AMQP 1.0, MQTT, STOMP, RabbitMQ Streams, HTTP, and WebSocket, including browser communication over WebSocket. Client libraries are available for Java, .NET/C#, Erlang, and other languages; the project also offers a community Docker image and Kubernetes operators. RabbitMQ can run in cloud or on-premises environments, on local machines and physical or virtual hardware, and in containers. Linux, Windows, and macOS are supported; z/OS, most mainframes, and systems with less than 100 MB of RAM are not. The free, self-managed Open Source RabbitMQ Server is offered under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 with best-effort community support. VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ is a commercial offering with 24/7 support and enterprise features; pricing is by contact.