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MQTT CLI vs MQTT Explorer: catalog facts
MQTT CLI	MQTT Explorer
Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence, backed by HiveMQ.	Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.
Windows, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux
Full MQTT 5.0 and 3.1.1 feature support Interactive shell with syntax highlighting and command history	Hierarchical topic tree with activity visualisation Diff view and per-topic history
Command line only, with no graphical interface Some commands only apply to HiveMQ brokers	Current version is still labelled beta Focused on inspection and debugging rather than broker administration
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: MIT
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.