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Apache ActiveMQ vs RabbitMQ: catalog facts
Apache ActiveMQ	RabbitMQ
Best for: Teams that need a self-hosted message broker for their applications	Best for: Developers connecting services through a self-hosted message queue
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence.	Free Free under MPL 2.0; Broadcom sells a commercial edition with support.
Windows, Self-hosted	Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted
Supports JMS, AMQP, STOMP and MQTT Clients available for many languages All 4 strengths for Apache ActiveMQ Supports JMS, AMQP, STOMP and MQTT Clients available for many languages High availability and networks of brokers Regular maintenance releases on several series	Supports AMQP 1.0 and MQTT 5.0 Both queues and streams in one broker All 4 strengths for RabbitMQ Supports AMQP 1.0 and MQTT 5.0 Both queues and streams in one broker Runs locally, on-premises or in the cloud Client libraries for many languages
Requires Java and server administration Aimed at developers and operators, not end users	Running a cluster in production takes operational knowledge Extended support and some features are in the paid Tanzu edition
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: MPL-2.0
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 RabbitMQ rabbitmq.com Catalog checked October 1, 2026

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