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Automation Integration · head to head

Activiti vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Activiti logo

Activiti

Automation Integration

Apache 2.0 BPMN engine under Hyland, from which Flowable and Camunda were forked

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

Small, EPL-licensed MQTT broker that runs on hardware other brokers cannot

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Activiti the last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024, and while release candidate builds continue, a two-year gap between stable versions is a real risk signal for a production dependency.; Eclipse Mosquitto there is no clustering: Mosquitto is a single process, so high availability means building your own failover and accepting session loss on switchover.
  • They diverge on capability: Activiti covers BPMN 2.0 engine, Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Activiti and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Activiti and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeActivitiEclipse Mosquitto
PlatformsLinux, Windows, Docker, KubernetesLinux, Windows, macOS, Docker
CategoryAutomation IntegrationNetworking

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Activiti

  • BPMN 2.0 engine
  • Activiti Cloud
  • Modeler
  • Java and REST APIs
  • Pluggable persistence
  • Identity integration

Only in Eclipse Mosquitto

  • MQTT 5.0 support
  • Very small footprint
  • Bridging
  • WebSockets listener
  • Command line clients
  • Dynamic security plugin

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Activiti

  • An Alfresco or Hyland content services deployment where Activiti is already the embedded workflow enginenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A Java application that needs to embed a BPMN engine as a library under a permissive licencenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • An organisation that has ruled out Camunda 8 on licence grounds and needs an Apache 2.0 alternativenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Document-centric approval workflows where the process engine sits inside the content management stack rather than beside itnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

  • A home or building automation stack where the broker must run on the same small computer as everything elsenot Activiti
  • An industrial gateway that buffers local telemetry and bridges selected topics to a cloud brokernot Activiti
  • Local development and testing of MQTT clients without provisioning a cloud IoT servicenot Activiti
  • An air-gapped deployment where a broker with no licence server and no phone-home behaviour is a requirementnot Activiti

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Activiti

  • The last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024, and while release candidate builds continue, a two-year gap between stable versions is a real risk signal for a production dependency.
  • Both Camunda and Flowable forked away and took large parts of the contributor base with them, so the community, tutorials and third-party tooling around Activiti are much thinner than around either fork.
  • Commercial support is only realistically available by buying Hyland Alfresco subscriptions, so there is no way to pay for Activiti support on its own.
  • Activiti Cloud imposes a distributed architecture of several Spring Boot services plus Keycloak, which is heavy for teams who simply wanted an embeddable engine.
  • Documentation is dated and partly split between old Alfresco sites and Hyland Connect, and the transition between Activiti 6, 7 and 8 architectures makes much of the older material actively misleading.

Eclipse Mosquitto

  • There is no clustering: Mosquitto is a single process, so high availability means building your own failover and accepting session loss on switchover.
  • Persistence is a local file rather than a replicated store, so a disk failure or an unclean shutdown can lose retained messages and queued QoS traffic.
  • Practical capacity is a few thousand concurrent clients on typical hardware, so a growing device fleet eventually forces a migration to a clustered broker.
  • The Eclipse Public Licence is weak copyleft rather than permissive, which some legal teams treat as a blocker when embedding the broker in a shipped commercial product.
  • There is no commercial support to buy from the project, so production incidents rely on community mailing lists or on paying a third party who happens to know the codebase.

Pricing, plan by plan

Activiti

Free
  • ActivitiFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Embeddable Java library or Activiti Cloud services
    • No usage limits

Eclipse Mosquitto

Free
  • Eclipse MosquittoFree
    • Eclipse Public License 2.0 with Eclipse Distribution Licence
    • MQTT 5.0, 3.1.1 and 3.1
    • No client or message limits beyond your hardware

Which should you pick?

Choose Activiti if

  • You need bpmn 2.0 engine.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want activiti cloud.
Activiti review

Choose Eclipse Mosquitto if

  • You need mqtt 5.0 support.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
  • You also want very small footprint.
Eclipse Mosquitto review

Questions people ask

Is Activiti or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Activiti starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Activiti or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Activiti starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Activiti or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Activiti runs on Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Activiti for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Activiti best used for?
Activiti is most often used for an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine, a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence, an organisation that has ruled out camunda 8 on licence grounds and needs an apache 2.0 alternative, document-centric approval workflows where the process engine sits inside the content management stack rather than beside it. Of those, an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine and a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Activiti do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Activiti covers BPMN 2.0 engine, Activiti Cloud, Modeler, Java and REST APIs. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Activiti: Is Activiti still maintained?

Yes, Hyland continues to publish builds, but the last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

No. It is a single process. High availability requires an external failover arrangement you build yourself.

Activiti: What is its relationship to Camunda and Flowable?

Both are forks of Activiti: Camunda in 2013 and Flowable in 2016, when core developers left Alfresco.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

Eclipse Public License 2.0 alongside the Eclipse Distribution License, a weak copyleft rather than a permissive licence.

Activiti: What licence is it?

Apache 2.0, which distinguishes it from Camunda 8’s source-available licence.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

A few thousand concurrent connections on ordinary hardware; beyond that, use a clustered broker.

Activiti: Should I choose Activiti for a new project?

Only if the Apache licence or an existing Alfresco deployment is decisive. Flowable and Camunda have far larger ecosystems.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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