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Networking · head to head

HiveMQ vs Zabbix

HiveMQ logo

HiveMQ

Networking

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Zabbix logo

Zabbix

Networking

Open source infrastructure and network monitoring with distributed proxies and templating

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Zabbix the database is the scaling limit, and high frequency polling grows history tables fast enough that untuned installations hit housekeeping stalls and query timeouts within months.
  • They diverge on capability: HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, Zabbix covers Agent and agentless collection.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which HiveMQ and Zabbix actually diverge.

Attributes where HiveMQ and Zabbix differ
AttributeHiveMQZabbix
Pricing modelPer month by connections and throughputOpen source, no licence fee

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), platforms (Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Networking).

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 Zabbix

  • Agent and agentless collection
  • Templates
  • Low-level discovery
  • Distributed proxies
  • Trigger expressions
  • Escalation actions

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 Zabbix
  • An industrial plant bridging MQTT telemetry into Kafka without writing and operating the bridgenot Zabbix
  • A utility that needs message-level schema validation so one faulty firmware release cannot corrupt the data lakenot Zabbix
  • An IoT project that needs a self-managed broker price for a budget submission without entering a sales processnot Zabbix

Zabbix

  • A service provider monitoring thousands of customer devices where per-device commercial licensing is the largest line itemnot HiveMQ
  • Branch or industrial sites with unreliable links that need local collection and bufferingnot HiveMQ
  • Mixed estates where the same tool must poll SNMP switches, Linux hosts, Windows servers and Java applicationsnot HiveMQ
  • Replacing an aging Nagios installation while keeping script-based checks that already existnot 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.

Zabbix

  • The database is the scaling limit, and high frequency polling grows history tables fast enough that untuned installations hit housekeeping stalls and query timeouts within months.
  • Initial configuration is heavy; getting useful alerting rather than noise requires understanding trigger expressions, macros and template inheritance, which is a multi-week learning curve for a team new to it.
  • The AGPLv3 change at version 7.0 affects anyone offering Zabbix over a network as part of a commercial service, and that obligation is easy to inherit accidentally during an upgrade.
  • The web interface is functional rather than pleasant, and many sites end up running Grafana alongside it purely for presentation, which is a second system to maintain.
  • Upgrades between major versions touch the database schema and can take hours on large history tables, so the maintenance window is proportional to how much data you kept.

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

Zabbix

Free
  • ZabbixFree
    • No device, node or metric limits
    • Full feature set with no paid edition of the software
    • AGPLv3 from version 7.0 onward
  • Zabbix Technical Support$undefined/year
    • Tiered subscriptions with defined response times
    • Access to Zabbix engineers for configuration and performance issues
    • Bug fix priority and backports

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 Zabbix if

  • You need agent and agentless collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want templates.
Zabbix review

Questions people ask

Is HiveMQ or Zabbix better?
Neither clearly leads. HiveMQ starts at Free and Zabbix at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, HiveMQ or Zabbix?
HiveMQ starts at Free and Zabbix at Free.
Does HiveMQ or Zabbix run on more platforms?
Both run on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
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 Zabbix is typically brought in for.
What can HiveMQ do that Zabbix cannot?
HiveMQ covers MQTT 5 and 3.1.1, Native clustering, Data Hub, Extension framework. Zabbix covers Agent and agentless collection, Templates, Low-level discovery, Distributed proxies.

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.

Zabbix: Is Zabbix genuinely free for commercial use?

The software has no licence fee at any scale. From version 7.0 it is AGPLv3, so offering it as a network service to third parties carries source distribution obligations.

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.

Zabbix: What is the real cost of running it?

Database administration and the person who tunes it. Budget for PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB and someone who owns the retention policy.

HiveMQ: Does it support MQTT 5?

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

Zabbix: How does it compare to a commercial per-device tool?

It removes the licence line entirely and adds an operations line. Below a few hundred devices the commercial tool is often cheaper in total; above that Zabbix wins clearly.

HiveMQ: Can it bridge into Kafka?

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

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