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Automation Integration · head to head

Meltano vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Meltano logo

Meltano

Automation Integration

Open source ELT built on the Singer tap and target ecosystem, configured as code

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: Meltano the company behind Meltano wound down in December 2025 and the project was transferred to Matatika, a much smaller organisation, so roadmap velocity and the size of the maintenance team are now materially lower than the tool's reputation suggests.; 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: Meltano covers Singer plugin management, 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 Meltano and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Meltano and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeMeltanoEclipse Mosquitto
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Docker, Windows (via WSL)Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker
CategoryAutomation IntegrationNetworking

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 Meltano

  • Singer plugin management
  • Project as code
  • Environments
  • Incremental state
  • dbt integration
  • Custom taps
  • Orchestrator hooks
  • Container deployment

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.

Meltano

  • A data team that wants to stop paying per-row connector fees on high-volume sources they can extract themselvesnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Loading from an API that no commercial ELT vendor supports, by writing a tap with the Meltano SDKnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Keeping pipeline configuration in the same Git repository and review process as the rest of the platform codenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A regulated environment where extraction must run inside your own network with no data passing through a vendornot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Where each one falls short

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

Meltano

  • The company behind Meltano wound down in December 2025 and the project was transferred to Matatika, a much smaller organisation, so roadmap velocity and the size of the maintenance team are now materially lower than the tool's reputation suggests.
  • Singer connector quality varies enormously; a tap may be maintained, abandoned, or maintained only for the subset of endpoints its original author needed, and you will not know which until a schema change breaks a load at 3am.
  • There is no managed hosting from the project itself, so someone on your team owns scheduling, secrets, retries, alerting and upgrades, which is real headcount that a per-row SaaS bill was buying for you.
  • It is command-line and YAML first with no meaningful web interface, so analysts who are not comfortable in Git and a terminal cannot maintain pipelines themselves.
  • Debugging spans three layers, the tap, Meltano itself and the target, and each has its own logging conventions, so failures often require reading Python source in a third-party connector.

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

Meltano

Free
  • MeltanoFree
    • MIT licensed, self-hosted
    • No paid Meltano Cloud tier; it was retired before the company wound down
    • Community support via Slack and GitHub

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 Meltano if

  • You need singer plugin management.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Windows (via WSL).
  • You also want project as code.
Meltano 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 Meltano or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Meltano 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, Meltano or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Meltano starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Meltano or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Meltano runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Windows (via WSL). Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Meltano for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Meltano best used for?
Meltano is most often used for a data team that wants to stop paying per-row connector fees on high-volume sources they can extract themselves, loading from an api that no commercial elt vendor supports, by writing a tap with the meltano sdk, keeping pipeline configuration in the same git repository and review process as the rest of the platform code, a regulated environment where extraction must run inside your own network with no data passing through a vendor. Of those, a data team that wants to stop paying per-row connector fees on high-volume sources they can extract themselves and loading from an api that no commercial elt vendor supports, by writing a tap with the meltano sdk are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Meltano do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Meltano covers Singer plugin management, Project as code, Environments, Incremental state. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Meltano: Is Meltano still maintained after the company shut down?

Yes. Arch, formerly Meltano, was acquired by Matatika in December 2025 and the open source project continues under their stewardship, with releases through 2026.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

Meltano: Is there a hosted Meltano?

Not from the project. Meltano Cloud was retired, and hosting now comes from Matatika or from running the container yourself.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Meltano: How does it compare on cost with Fivetran?

Meltano has no licence fee, so the comparison is your engineering time versus Fivetran's per-monthly-active-row billing. High-volume, low-complexity sources favour Meltano; long tails of fiddly SaaS APIs favour Fivetran.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

Meltano: Can I use Airbyte connectors with it?

Yes, Meltano can run Airbyte source connectors through a bridge, which widens the connector pool beyond Singer taps.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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