Is EMQX or Vitess better?

Neither clearly leads. EMQX starts at Free and Vitess at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, EMQX or Vitess?

EMQX starts at Free and Vitess at Free.

Does EMQX or Vitess run on more platforms?

EMQX runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, macOS. Vitess runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes.

Can I use EMQX for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is EMQX best used for?

EMQX is most often used for a connected vehicle platform needing millions of persistent mqtt sessions with quic for handover across mobile networks, an industrial operator routing sensor telemetry straight into timescaledb or kafka without writing a consumer service, an iot product team that has outgrown a single mosquitto instance and needs clustering and shared subscriptions, a smart building deployment mixing mqtt, coap and lwm2m devices on one broker. Of those, a connected vehicle platform needing millions of persistent mqtt sessions with quic for handover across mobile networks and an industrial operator routing sensor telemetry straight into timescaledb or kafka without writing a consumer service are not what Vitess is typically brought in for.

What can EMQX do that Vitess cannot?

EMQX covers Erlang clustering, MQTT 5.0 and QUIC, Rule engine, Data integration sinks. Vitess covers Horizontal Sharding, Connection Pooling, Query Routing, Online Schema Changes.

Databases · head to head

EMQX vs Vitess

EMQX

Databases

Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Vitess

Databases

Scalable database clustering system for horizontal scaling of MySQL

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: EMQX the move to Business Source Licence 1.1 at version 5.9 in May 2025 limits free production use to a single node, so the clustering that justifies choosing EMQX now requires a paid subscription from the second node onward.; Vitess vTGate scatter queries without sharding key incur significant performance penalties
They diverge on capability: EMQX covers Erlang clustering, Vitess covers Horizontal Sharding.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which EMQX and Vitess actually diverge.

Attributes where EMQX and Vitess differ
Attribute	EMQX	Vitess
Pricing model	Per month by connection and session volume	Unknown
Platforms	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, macOS	Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes
Founded	Unknown	2010

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

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 EMQX

Erlang clustering
MQTT 5.0 and QUIC
Rule engine
Data integration sinks
Session persistence
Multi protocol gateways
Authentication and authorisation
Dashboard and REST API

Only in Vitess

Horizontal Sharding
Connection Pooling
Query Routing
Online Schema Changes
Shard Management
Replication Management
Automated Failover
MySQL

What people use each for

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

EMQX

A connected vehicle platform needing millions of persistent MQTT sessions with QUIC for handover across mobile networksnot Vitess
An industrial operator routing sensor telemetry straight into TimescaleDB or Kafka without writing a consumer servicenot Vitess
An IoT product team that has outgrown a single Mosquitto instance and needs clustering and shared subscriptionsnot Vitess
A smart building deployment mixing MQTT, CoAP and LwM2M devices on one brokernot Vitess

Vitess

Transaction processingnot EMQX
Data storagenot EMQX
Application backendnot EMQX
Reportingnot EMQX
Data analyticsnot EMQX

Where each one falls short

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

EMQX

The move to Business Source Licence 1.1 at version 5.9 in May 2025 limits free production use to a single node, so the clustering that justifies choosing EMQX now requires a paid subscription from the second node onward.
The relicensing arrived in a minor release, which caught users who had pinned to 5.x expecting Apache 2.0 terms and forced legal review of existing deployments.
Running an Erlang/OTP cluster well requires operational knowledge most teams do not have, and diagnosing distribution, mnesia or memory issues means learning a runtime you use for nothing else.
Enterprise pricing is quoted rather than published for the self-managed edition, so the cost of the clustered configuration you actually need is invisible until you talk to sales.
The Serverless tier caps at around a thousand connections and shares infrastructure, which makes it a prototyping tier rather than a genuine small production option.

Vitess

VTGate scatter queries without sharding key incur significant performance penalties
Foreign key constraints not enforced across shards, requiring application-level integrity handling
Single primary per keyspace limits multi-region write capabilities
Distributed transactions without proper sharding key routing suffer performance degradation

Pricing, plan by plan

EMQX

Free

Open Source single nodeFree
- BSL 1.1 licence since version 5.9
- Free production use of one node only
- All former enterprise features visible
ServerlessFree
- Free monthly quota then pay as you go
- Up to 1,000 connections
- 8 by 5 support
Dedicated Flex$234/month
- Single tenant cluster
- Traffic allowance included
- 24/7 support
Enterprise self-managed$undefined/year
- Deploy on premises, at the edge or in any cloud
- Clustering licensed
- 256 MB maximum message size

Vitess

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Vitess review.

Which should you pick?

Choose EMQX if

You need erlang clustering.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, macOS.
You also want mqtt 5.0 and quic.

EMQX review

Choose Vitess if

You need horizontal sharding.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes.
You also want connection pooling.

Vitess review

Questions people ask

Is EMQX or Vitess better?: Neither clearly leads. EMQX starts at Free and Vitess at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, EMQX or Vitess?: EMQX starts at Free and Vitess at Free.
Does EMQX or Vitess run on more platforms?: EMQX runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, macOS. Vitess runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes.
Can I use EMQX for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is EMQX best used for?: EMQX is most often used for a connected vehicle platform needing millions of persistent mqtt sessions with quic for handover across mobile networks, an industrial operator routing sensor telemetry straight into timescaledb or kafka without writing a consumer service, an iot product team that has outgrown a single mosquitto instance and needs clustering and shared subscriptions, a smart building deployment mixing mqtt, coap and lwm2m devices on one broker. Of those, a connected vehicle platform needing millions of persistent mqtt sessions with quic for handover across mobile networks and an industrial operator routing sensor telemetry straight into timescaledb or kafka without writing a consumer service are not what Vitess is typically brought in for.
What can EMQX do that Vitess cannot?: EMQX covers Erlang clustering, MQTT 5.0 and QUIC, Rule engine, Data integration sinks. Vitess covers Horizontal Sharding, Connection Pooling, Query Routing, Online Schema Changes.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

EMQX: Is EMQX still open source?

Not in the OSI sense since version 5.9. It is source-available under Business Source Licence 1.1, reverting to Apache 2.0 four years after each release.

Vitess: Is Vitess free to use?

Yes. Vitess is completely free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license. It is a graduated CNCF project with no licensing costs or pricing tiers.

Source

EMQX: Can I run a free cluster?

No. The additional use grant permits free production use of one node; clustering requires a commercial licence.

Vitess: What databases does Vitess support?

Vitess supports MySQL and MariaDB as backend databases. It acts as a middleware layer that adds sharding and orchestration capabilities on top of these databases.

Source

EMQX: What changed for existing users?

Community and enterprise editions merged, so all features are now visible, but the licence terms tightened in the same minor release.

Vitess: Does Vitess require Kubernetes to run?

No. Vitess can run on Kubernetes using the Vitess Operator, but it can also be deployed on traditional infrastructure. Kubernetes integration is optional and provides additional automation benefits.

Source

EMQX: Which version is still Apache 2.0?

Releases before 5.9 remain under Apache 2.0, and each BSL release converts to Apache 2.0 four years after publication.

Vitess: How does Vitess handle cross-shard transactions?

Vitess supports distributed transactions across shards, but they require queries to be routed through the sharding key. Transactions without a proper sharding key can result in slower performance.

Source

Vitess: Does Vitess enforce foreign key constraints?

Vitess does not enforce foreign key constraints across shards by default. Referential integrity must be managed at the application layer, though per-database support can be enabled with limitations.

Source

EMQX vs Vitess

EMQX

Vitess

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in EMQX

Only in Vitess

What people use each for

EMQX

Vitess

Where each one falls short

EMQX

Vitess

Pricing, plan by plan

EMQX

Vitess

Which should you pick?

Choose EMQX if

Choose Vitess if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on EMQX

More on Vitess

Keep looking

Other head to heads