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Cloud · head to head

Jaeger vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Jaeger logo

Jaeger

Cloud

Open-source end-to-end distributed tracing

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: Jaeger tracing is only as good as the instrumentation, and partial instrumentation produces misleading gaps; 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: Jaeger covers Distributed trace search, 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 Jaeger and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Jaeger and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeJaegerEclipse Mosquitto
PlatformsLinux, Kubernetes, DockerLinux, Windows, macOS, Docker
CategoryCloudNetworking

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), 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 Jaeger

  • Distributed trace search
  • Dependency graph
  • Adaptive sampling
  • Pluggable storage

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.

Jaeger

  • Finding which service in a request path causes the latencynot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wikinot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Debugging failures that only appear under production traffic patternsnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Where each one falls short

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

Jaeger

  • Tracing is only as good as the instrumentation, and partial instrumentation produces misleading gaps
  • Storage is the real operational cost: high-volume tracing on Elasticsearch or Cassandra is a cluster to run and pay for
  • Traces alone, without correlated metrics and logs, leave you switching between tools during an incident

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

Jaeger

Free
  • JaegerFree
    • Full functionality
    • No usage limits
    • Community support

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 Jaeger if

  • You need distributed trace search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes, Docker.
  • You also want dependency graph.
Jaeger 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 Jaeger or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Jaeger 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, Jaeger or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Jaeger starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Jaeger or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Jaeger runs on Linux, Kubernetes, Docker. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Jaeger for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Jaeger best used for?
Jaeger is most often used for finding which service in a request path causes the latency, understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wiki, debugging failures that only appear under production traffic patterns. Of those, finding which service in a request path causes the latency and understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wiki are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Jaeger do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Jaeger covers Distributed trace search, Dependency graph, Adaptive sampling, Pluggable storage. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Jaeger: Is Jaeger free?

Yes, open source and CNCF-graduated. Costs are the storage backend you run.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

Jaeger: Do I use Jaeger or OpenTelemetry?

Both, usually. Instrument with OpenTelemetry and use Jaeger to store and query the traces.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Jaeger: Does Jaeger handle metrics and logs?

No. It is a tracing system. Metrics and logs need Prometheus, Loki or an equivalent.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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