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Networking · head to head

LibreNMS vs Eclipse Mosquitto

LibreNMS logo

LibreNMS

Networking

Free, community-driven network monitoring with commercial support sold by a third-party partner, not the project itself

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: LibreNMS there is no official LibreNMS company; commercial support runs through a single designated third-party partner, Config Services Ltd, rather than a broad vendor support market; 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: LibreNMS covers SNMP auto-discovery, Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which LibreNMS and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where LibreNMS and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeLibreNMSEclipse Mosquitto
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence fee; commercial support sold by a third-party partnerOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, WebLinux, Windows, macOS, Docker

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 LibreNMS

  • SNMP auto-discovery
  • Device and OS support
  • Alerting
  • API
  • Distributed polling

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.

LibreNMS

  • A network team wanting SNMP-based device monitoring with zero licence cost and full control over the deploymentnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • An organisation with in-house Linux and networking expertise that does not need a vendor support contractnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A team wanting an alternative to Icinga that is focused specifically on network device polling rather than general infrastructure monitoringnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A company wanting SLA-backed support for LibreNMS but without wanting to build that capability in-house, contracting the designated partner insteadnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Where each one falls short

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

LibreNMS

  • There is no official LibreNMS company; commercial support runs through a single designated third-party partner, Config Services Ltd, rather than a broad vendor support market
  • Self-hosting and maintaining LibreNMS requires real Linux and SNMP expertise, and there is no vendor obligated to fix issues without a separate paid support arrangement
  • Device and OS support quality varies because it is community-contributed, so obscure or newer hardware may have thinner or less accurate polling templates than mainstream vendors
  • The web interface, while functional, is less polished out of the box than commercial tools like PRTG, and dashboard customisation takes more manual configuration
  • Scaling to a very large device count requires manually configuring distributed polling, which is more operational work than a SaaS tool that scales transparently
  • Project direction depends on community and contributor priorities rather than a company roadmap, so feature development pace and priorities can be less predictable than a commercial vendor's

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

LibreNMS

Free
  • LibreNMSFree
    • Full functionality
    • No usage limits
    • Community forum and GitHub 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 LibreNMS if

  • You need snmp auto-discovery.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Web.
  • You also want device and os support.
LibreNMS 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 LibreNMS or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. LibreNMS 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, LibreNMS or Eclipse Mosquitto?
LibreNMS starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does LibreNMS or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
LibreNMS runs on Linux, Web. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use LibreNMS for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is LibreNMS best used for?
LibreNMS is most often used for a network team wanting snmp-based device monitoring with zero licence cost and full control over the deployment, an organisation with in-house linux and networking expertise that does not need a vendor support contract, a team wanting an alternative to icinga that is focused specifically on network device polling rather than general infrastructure monitoring, a company wanting sla-backed support for librenms but without wanting to build that capability in-house, contracting the designated partner instead. Of those, a network team wanting snmp-based device monitoring with zero licence cost and full control over the deployment and an organisation with in-house linux and networking expertise that does not need a vendor support contract are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can LibreNMS do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
LibreNMS covers SNMP auto-discovery, Device and OS support, Alerting, API. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

LibreNMS: Is LibreNMS really free with no paid tier of the software?

Yes, the software itself has no licence fee; only optional third-party support is paid.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

LibreNMS: Who provides paid support?

Config Services Ltd is the designated partner offering SLA-backed support and consultancy for LibreNMS.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

LibreNMS: Does LibreNMS require SNMP access to every device?

Yes, its core monitoring approach relies on SNMP polling, so devices must have SNMP enabled and reachable.

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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