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Apache ActiveMQ vs Eclipse Mosquitto: catalog facts
Apache ActiveMQ	Eclipse Mosquitto

Best for: Teams that need a self-hosted message broker for their applications	Best for: Home automation and IoT setups that need a self-hosted MQTT broker
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence.	Free Free and open source under the EPL/EDL licences.
Windows, Self-hosted	Windows, Linux, Self-hosted, Command line
Supports JMS, AMQP, STOMP and MQTT Clients available for many languages High availability and networks of brokers Regular maintenance releases on several series	Supports MQTT 5.0, 3.1.1 and 3.1 Light enough for single-board computers Includes mosquitto_pub and mosquitto_sub command-line clients Ships a C client library
Requires Java and server administration Aimed at developers and operators, not end users	A broker only, with no graphical interface for managing messages Requires familiarity with MQTT and broker configuration
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: EPL/EDL
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Apache ActiveMQ activemq.apache.org Catalog checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Eclipse Mosquitto mosquitto.org Catalog checked October 2, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.