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Databases · head to head

Canary Labs vs HiveMQ

Canary Labs logo

Canary Labs

Databases

Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees

From
$3000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
HiveMQ logo

HiveMQ

Networking

Enterprise MQTT broker for industrial IoT with a published self-managed price list

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only HiveMQ has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Canary Labs pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.; HiveMQ the Community Edition lacks clustering, persistence extensions, the control centre and all enterprise bridges, so a prototype built on it does not become production by buying support.
  • They diverge on capability: Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Canary Labs and HiveMQ actually diverge.

Attributes where Canary Labs and HiveMQ differ
AttributeCanary LabsHiveMQ
Starting price$3000/yearFree
Pricing modelPer tag band per yearPer month by connections and throughput
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, WebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web
CategoryDatabasesNetworking

Identical on both: 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 Canary Labs

  • Loss-less compression
  • Unlimited clients
  • Store and forward
  • Views service
  • Sparkplug B
  • Calculation engine
  • Axiom
  • ODBC and REST

Only in HiveMQ

  • MQTT 5 and 3.1.1
  • Native clustering
  • Data Hub
  • Extension framework
  • Enterprise bridges
  • Control centre

What people use each for

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

Canary Labs

  • A manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a PI System enterprise agreementnot HiveMQ
  • A water utility replacing SCADA-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next SCADA replacementnot HiveMQ
  • An Ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboardsnot HiveMQ
  • A plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an auditnot HiveMQ

HiveMQ

  • A connected vehicle fleet where devices drop off the network for hours and sessions must survivenot Canary Labs
  • An industrial plant bridging MQTT telemetry into Kafka without writing and operating the bridgenot Canary Labs
  • A utility that needs message-level schema validation so one faulty firmware release cannot corrupt the data lakenot Canary Labs
  • An IoT project that needs a self-managed broker price for a budget submission without entering a sales processnot Canary Labs

Where each one falls short

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

Canary Labs

  • Pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.
  • CustomerCare at 18 percent of licence cost is effectively mandatory on perpetual licences because lapsing it removes upgrades, so the perpetual option is not really a one-time cost.
  • The storage format is proprietary; getting data out at volume means the ODBC connector, an additional 2,500 USD one-time or 1,000 USD a year, or writing against the REST API.
  • Canary is a small vendor with a limited partner network outside North America, so support coverage and integrator availability in Europe and Asia are thinner than for AVEVA or Ignition.
  • It is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates.

HiveMQ

  • The Community Edition lacks clustering, persistence extensions, the control centre and all enterprise bridges, so a prototype built on it does not become production by buying support.
  • The entry commercial tiers cap at ten thousand connections, and device fleets grow, so the step to Enterprise capacity pricing arrives sooner than most projects plan for.
  • It is a JVM application, so memory tuning and garbage collection behaviour become the operator’s problem at high connection counts, unlike the C-based brokers in this space.
  • Extensions are written in Java against HiveMQ’s SPI, which means custom authentication logic is locked to the platform and cannot move to another broker.
  • For simple use cases it is substantially heavier and more expensive than Mosquitto or EMQX, and small deployments frequently pay enterprise prices for clustering they never use.

Pricing, plan by plan

Canary Labs

$3000/year
  • Subscription, 3,500 tags$3000/year
    • Unlimited Axiom clients
    • Unlimited Excel clients
    • Support and upgrades included
  • Perpetual, 3,500 tags$8730/one-time
    • 7,400 USD licence plus 1,330 USD first-year CustomerCare
    • CustomerCare renews at 18 percent of licence cost per year
    • Unlimited clients
  • Private cloud, 3,500 tags$12320/year
    • Hosted by Canary
    • 1,500 USD one-time setup fee per system
    • Scales to around 58,684 USD per year at 60,000 tags
  • Enterprise unlimited$undefined/year
    • Unlimited tags
    • Negotiated licensing terms
    • Quoted pricing

HiveMQ

Free
  • Community EditionFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • MQTT 3.1.1 and 5 support
    • Single broker, no clustering
  • Launch$299/month
    • Ten thousand connections
    • Five hundred messages per second
    • Single broker deployment
  • Run$499/month
    • Ten thousand connections
    • One thousand messages per second
    • Single broker deployment
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Priced by connections and throughput
    • Multi-broker and multi-site deployments
    • Distributed data intelligence

Which should you pick?

Choose Canary Labs if

  • You need loss-less compression.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want unlimited clients.
Canary Labs review

Choose HiveMQ if

  • You need mqtt 5 and 3.1.1.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want native clustering.
HiveMQ review

Questions people ask

Is Canary Labs or HiveMQ better?
Neither clearly leads. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year and HiveMQ at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Canary Labs or HiveMQ?
HiveMQ has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3000/year for Canary Labs and Free for HiveMQ.
Does Canary Labs or HiveMQ run on more platforms?
Canary Labs runs on Windows, Web. HiveMQ runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
Can I use HiveMQ for free?
Yes. HiveMQ has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year.
What is Canary Labs best used for?
Canary Labs is most often used for a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement, a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement, an ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboards, a plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an audit. Of those, a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement and a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement are not what HiveMQ is typically brought in for.
What can Canary Labs do that HiveMQ cannot?
Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Unlimited clients, Store and forward, Views service. HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, Native clustering, Data Hub, Extension framework.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Canary Labs: What does Canary cost?

8,730 USD for a 3,500 tag perpetual system including first-year CustomerCare, or 3,000 USD a year on subscription.

HiveMQ: Is HiveMQ free?

The Community Edition is Apache 2.0 and free, but it has no clustering and none of the enterprise extensions.

Canary Labs: Are client licences extra?

No. Unlimited Axiom browser clients and unlimited Excel clients are included on every tier.

HiveMQ: What does the commercial version cost?

Self-managed Launch is 299 US dollars a month for ten thousand connections; Run is 499 with higher throughput.

Canary Labs: Is perpetual cheaper than subscription?

Canary states perpetual pays off after roughly three years, and after that you still pay 18 percent CustomerCare annually.

HiveMQ: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, both MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, including shared subscriptions and session expiry intervals.

Canary Labs: Does it use lossy compression?

No. Canary stores every collected value rather than approximating the trend, which matters for regulated data retention.

HiveMQ: Can it bridge into Kafka?

Yes, via a commercial enterprise extension, not in the Community Edition.

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