Softwr

Networking · head to head

Icinga vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Icinga logo

Icinga

Networking

Open source infrastructure monitoring, free at its core, with paid support and modules sold separately by Icinga GmbH

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: Icinga the free core has no vendor SLA, so production incidents are supported through community channels unless a paid support subscription is purchased; 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: Icinga covers Forever Free core, 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 Icinga and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Icinga and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeIcingaEclipse Mosquitto
Pricing modelOpen source core, with paid repository, module and support subscriptions sold separatelyOpen 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 Icinga

  • Forever Free core
  • Clustering and HA
  • Icinga Web and API
  • Enterprise modules (paid)
  • Integration ecosystem

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.

Icinga

  • An IT team wanting unlimited-scale open source monitoring with no per-host licence fee, running standard Linux distributionsnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • An organisation on RHEL or SLES that wants officially packaged Icinga builds via the repository subscription rather than building from sourcenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A team wanting an SLA-backed vendor support relationship rather than relying on community forums for a production monitoring systemnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A company already invested in Prometheus and Grafana wanting to add host and service-level alerting from a compatible open source toolnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Where each one falls short

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

Icinga

  • The free core has no vendor SLA, so production incidents are supported through community channels unless a paid support subscription is purchased
  • Repository access for enterprise Linux distributions like RHEL and SLES is not free, so organisations standardised on those distributions face a real recurring cost most open source monitoring buyers do not expect
  • Enterprise modules are gated behind a separate module subscription, so some functionality demonstrated in marketing material is not part of the free core
  • Self-hosting and operating Icinga requires real Linux and monitoring expertise that a commercial SaaS tool would otherwise absorb, so total cost of ownership includes staff time not captured in the licence price
  • Pricing for the paid subscriptions varies by geographic region and is not published as a single global rate card, complicating budgeting for multinational organisations
  • The web interface and configuration language, while capable, are less immediately polished than a fully commercial tool like PRTG, and initial setup takes longer to reach a usable state

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

Icinga

Free
  • IcingaFree
    • Unlimited hosts and services
    • Clustering and API
    • Community support
  • Support Subscription$undefined/year
    • Professional support (8x5 or 24/7)
    • Includes module and repository subscriptions

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 Icinga if

  • You need forever free core.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Web.
  • You also want clustering and ha.
Icinga 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 Icinga or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Icinga 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, Icinga or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Icinga starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Icinga or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Icinga runs on Linux, Web. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Icinga for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Icinga best used for?
Icinga is most often used for an it team wanting unlimited-scale open source monitoring with no per-host licence fee, running standard linux distributions, an organisation on rhel or sles that wants officially packaged icinga builds via the repository subscription rather than building from source, a team wanting an sla-backed vendor support relationship rather than relying on community forums for a production monitoring system, a company already invested in prometheus and grafana wanting to add host and service-level alerting from a compatible open source tool. Of those, an it team wanting unlimited-scale open source monitoring with no per-host licence fee, running standard linux distributions and an organisation on rhel or sles that wants officially packaged icinga builds via the repository subscription rather than building from source are not what Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Icinga do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Icinga covers Forever Free core, Clustering and HA, Icinga Web and API, Enterprise modules (paid). Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Icinga: Is Icinga free to run in production?

Yes, the core platform has no licence fee and no limit on hosts or services monitored.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

Icinga: What do the paid subscriptions actually add?

A repository subscription provides packages for certain enterprise Linux distributions, a module subscription unlocks enterprise-only add-on modules, and a support subscription bundles both with professional support.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Icinga: Is Icinga related to Nagios?

Yes, it originated as a fork of Nagios but has since diverged into an independently developed platform.

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.

Share

Related pages

More on Icinga

More on Eclipse Mosquitto

Keep looking

Other head to heads