Is HiveMQ or InfluxDB better?

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

Which is cheaper, HiveMQ or InfluxDB?

HiveMQ starts at Free and InfluxDB at Free.

Does HiveMQ or InfluxDB run on more platforms?

HiveMQ runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web. InfluxDB runs on Cloud, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure.

Can I use HiveMQ for free?

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

What is HiveMQ best used for?

HiveMQ is most often used for a connected vehicle fleet where devices drop off the network for hours and sessions must survive, an industrial plant bridging mqtt telemetry into kafka without writing and operating the bridge, a utility that needs message-level schema validation so one faulty firmware release cannot corrupt the data lake, an iot project that needs a self-managed broker price for a budget submission without entering a sales process. Of those, a connected vehicle fleet where devices drop off the network for hours and sessions must survive and an industrial plant bridging mqtt telemetry into kafka without writing and operating the bridge are not what InfluxDB is typically brought in for.

What can HiveMQ do that InfluxDB cannot?

HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, Native clustering, Data Hub, Extension framework. InfluxDB covers Time-series Storage, Flux Query Language, High Write Throughput, Data Compression.

Networking · head to head

HiveMQ vs InfluxDB

HiveMQ

Networking

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

InfluxDB

Logging

Purpose-built time series database for metrics and events

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: 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.; InfluxDB high-cardinality data causes memory pressure and performance degradation
They diverge on capability: HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, InfluxDB covers Time-series Storage.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which HiveMQ and InfluxDB actually diverge.

Attributes where HiveMQ and InfluxDB differ
Attribute	HiveMQ	InfluxDB
Pricing model	Per month by connections and throughput	Unknown
Platforms	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web	Cloud, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
Category	Networking	Logging
Founded	Unknown	2012

Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 HiveMQ

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

Only in InfluxDB

Time-series Storage
Flux Query Language
High Write Throughput
Data Compression
Retention Policies
Continuous Queries
Built-in Dashboards
Telegraf

What people use each for

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

HiveMQ

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

InfluxDB

Monitoringnot HiveMQ
IoT datanot HiveMQ
Financial datanot HiveMQ
Log analyticsnot HiveMQ
Observabilitynot HiveMQ

Where each one falls short

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

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.

InfluxDB

High-cardinality data causes memory pressure and performance degradation
No support for joins or transactions like relational databases
Queries limited to 72-hour window in InfluxDB 3 OSS Core
Clustering and authentication features absent from community version

Pricing, plan by plan

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

InfluxDB

Free

Cloud Serverless FreeFree
- 5 MB writes per 5 minutes
- 300 MB queries per 5 minutes
- 30 day retention
Cloud Serverless Usage-Based$undefined/mo
- 0.0025 USD per MB ingested
- 0.012 USD per 100 queries
- 0.002 USD per GB-hour storage

Which should you pick?

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

Choose InfluxDB if

You need time-series storage.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Cloud, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure.
You also want flux query language.

InfluxDB review

Questions people ask

Is HiveMQ or InfluxDB better?: Neither clearly leads. HiveMQ starts at Free and InfluxDB at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, HiveMQ or InfluxDB?: HiveMQ starts at Free and InfluxDB at Free.
Does HiveMQ or InfluxDB run on more platforms?: HiveMQ runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web. InfluxDB runs on Cloud, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure.
Can I use HiveMQ for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is HiveMQ best used for?: HiveMQ is most often used for a connected vehicle fleet where devices drop off the network for hours and sessions must survive, an industrial plant bridging mqtt telemetry into kafka without writing and operating the bridge, a utility that needs message-level schema validation so one faulty firmware release cannot corrupt the data lake, an iot project that needs a self-managed broker price for a budget submission without entering a sales process. Of those, a connected vehicle fleet where devices drop off the network for hours and sessions must survive and an industrial plant bridging mqtt telemetry into kafka without writing and operating the bridge are not what InfluxDB is typically brought in for.
What can HiveMQ do that InfluxDB cannot?: HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, Native clustering, Data Hub, Extension framework. InfluxDB covers Time-series Storage, Flux Query Language, High Write Throughput, Data Compression.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

HiveMQ: Is HiveMQ free?

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

InfluxDB: Is there a free tier and what are the limits?

InfluxDB 3 Core OSS is free forever for local development and prototyping. Cloud Serverless free tier includes 5 MB writes per 5 minutes, 300 MB queries per 5 minutes, 30 day retention, and 2 databases.

Source

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.

InfluxDB: Can I self-host InfluxDB?

Yes, InfluxDB 3 Core is fully open source and can be self-hosted with no license required. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise is self-managed and includes a 30-day free trial.

Source

HiveMQ: Does it support MQTT 5?

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

InfluxDB: What are the series cardinality limitations?

InfluxDB is sensitive to high-cardinality data. High cardinality increases RAM usage and can trigger out-of-memory errors, making it unsuitable for some workloads with many unique tag combinations.

Source

HiveMQ: Can it bridge into Kafka?

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

InfluxDB: Does InfluxDB support SQL queries?

InfluxDB has limited SQL support. Full SQL is available in InfluxDB 3, but earlier versions support only specific SQL commands and use InfluxQL as the primary query language.

Source

InfluxDB: Can I export my data from InfluxDB?

Yes, data can be exported from InfluxDB using query results. However, the process and supported formats depend on the version and deployment type you are using.

Source

HiveMQ vs InfluxDB

HiveMQ

InfluxDB

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in HiveMQ

Only in InfluxDB

What people use each for

HiveMQ

InfluxDB

Where each one falls short

HiveMQ

InfluxDB

Pricing, plan by plan

HiveMQ

InfluxDB

Which should you pick?

Choose HiveMQ if

Choose InfluxDB if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on HiveMQ

More on InfluxDB

Keep looking

Other head to heads