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Cloud · head to head

Infracost vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Infracost logo

Infracost

Cloud

Cloud cost estimates in pull requests, with governance in the paid tier

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: Infracost usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.; 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: Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, 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 Infracost and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Infracost and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeInfracostEclipse Mosquitto
Pricing modelFree open source tool, then per month by run volumeOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, macOS, Linux, Windows, DockerLinux, Windows, macOS, Docker
CategoryCloudNetworking

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 Infracost

  • Pull request cost diffs
  • Multi-format parsing
  • Apache-2.0 CLI
  • FinOps policies
  • Automated remediation
  • IDE 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.

Infracost

  • Teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoicenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at allnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Organisations adopting FinOps practice without buying a full cloud management platformnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the Terraformnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Where each one falls short

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

Infracost

  • Usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.
  • Splitting production from non-production usage assumptions is not supported in the free usage file, which the docs attribute to a missing project filter, so that separation requires the paid product.
  • The step from 250 to 1,000 dollars a month is large and the Cloud tier includes only ten admin seats, with developer seats charged at a figure that is not published, so the cost for a large organisation cannot be computed from the pricing page.
  • Estimates are list price. Negotiated agreements, committed use discounts and reserved instance economics require SKU-level overrides available only on Enterprise, so the number in the pull request is not the number on the bill.
  • The share of the product covered by the Apache-2.0 licence is shrinking. Checks, automated fixes, policies and agent integrations are all hosted-only, so the permissive licence increasingly protects the estimation engine rather than the product.

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

Infracost

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1,000 runs a month
    • Terraform, CloudFormation and CDK estimates
    • Community support
  • Starter$250/month
    • 10,000 runs a month
    • Email support
  • Cloud$1000/month
    • Ten admin seats, developer seats charged separately
    • FinOps policies and cost guardrails
    • Dashboards and audit trails
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • SKU-level price overrides for negotiated rates
    • Business unit reporting
    • SSO with SAML group mapping

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 Infracost if

  • You need pull request cost diffs.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want multi-format parsing.
Infracost 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 Infracost or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Infracost 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, Infracost or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Infracost starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Infracost or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Infracost runs on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Infracost for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Infracost best used for?
Infracost is most often used for teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice, platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all, organisations adopting finops practice without buying a full cloud management platform, engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the terraform. Of those, teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice and platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Infracost do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Multi-format parsing, Apache-2.0 CLI, FinOps policies. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Infracost: Is the open source version genuinely useful on its own?

Yes, for estimation. It parses your definitions and produces breakdowns and diffs locally. What it does not do is comment on pull requests, enforce policy or report across an organisation, all of which are hosted-only.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

Infracost: Will the estimate match my cloud bill?

No. It is list price. Committed use discounts, enterprise agreements and reserved instances need SKU-level overrides that sit in the Enterprise tier.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Infracost: Why do my S3 and Lambda resources show no cost?

Usage-based resources need monthly usage values supplied in a usage file or defined centrally. Without them they estimate at zero, which is the documented behaviour and the most common way the tool misleads.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

Infracost: Has the licence ever changed?

No. The command line tool has been Apache 2.0 throughout, with no Business Source or AGPL episode, which is unusual in this category.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

Infracost: What is a run?

Not defined on the public pricing page, and the run allowance is what separates the free and Starter tiers, so establish the definition before choosing between them.

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