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Networking · head to head

Eclipse Mosquitto vs Netdata

Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

Small, EPL-licensed MQTT broker that runs on hardware other brokers cannot

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Netdata logo

Netdata

Networking

Per-second metrics collection with automatic dashboards and on-node anomaly detection

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Netdata the dashboard interface is under a restrictive Netdata licence rather than GPL and is served from Netdata infrastructure by default, so the deployment is not fully self-contained without extra configuration.
  • They diverge on capability: Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Netdata covers Per-second collection.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Eclipse Mosquitto and Netdata differ
AttributeEclipse MosquittoNetdata
PlatformsLinux, Windows, macOS, DockerLinux, macOS, FreeBSD, Docker, Kubernetes, Windows

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

  • MQTT 5.0 support
  • Very small footprint
  • Bridging
  • WebSockets listener
  • Command line clients
  • Dynamic security plugin

Only in Netdata

  • Per-second collection
  • Zero-configuration discovery
  • Edge machine learning
  • Tiered database engine
  • Streaming and replication
  • Health alarms

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Netdata

  • Diagnosing a short-lived performance incident where one-minute averages hide the spike entirelynot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Kubernetes clusters where per-series billing from a hosted vendor has become the largest observability costnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Adding dense host visibility to an estate that already has Prometheus for application metricsnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Small teams with no monitoring engineer who need working dashboards on the day of installationnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Netdata

  • The dashboard interface is under a restrictive Netdata licence rather than GPL and is served from Netdata infrastructure by default, so the deployment is not fully self-contained without extra configuration.
  • Retention is limited by disk on each node unless you build and maintain a parent tier, which makes it a poor archive for year-over-year capacity planning.
  • Per-second collection consumes noticeable CPU and memory on small or heavily loaded nodes, and on constrained edge hardware the monitoring becomes part of the problem.
  • Default alerting is generous and fires on conditions many teams consider normal, so the first weeks involve pruning alarms rather than responding to them.
  • Fleet-level features that make it usable across hundreds of nodes sit in Netdata Cloud, so the free agent alone leaves you visiting individual node dashboards.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Netdata

Free
  • Netdata AgentFree
    • GPLv3 agent with unlimited nodes
    • Per-second metrics and edge anomaly detection
    • Local dashboards and alerting
  • Netdata Cloud paid tiers$undefined/month
    • Per-node subscription for fleet management features
    • Role based access control and longer alert history
    • Business and enterprise support options

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Netdata if

  • You need per-second collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Docker, Kubernetes, Windows.
  • You also want zero-configuration discovery.
Netdata review

Questions people ask

Is Eclipse Mosquitto or Netdata better?
Neither clearly leads. Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Netdata at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Eclipse Mosquitto or Netdata?
Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Netdata at Free.
Does Eclipse Mosquitto or Netdata run on more platforms?
Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker. Netdata runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Docker, Kubernetes, Windows.
Can I use Eclipse Mosquitto for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Eclipse Mosquitto best used for?
Eclipse Mosquitto is most often used for a home or building automation stack where the broker must run on the same small computer as everything else, an industrial gateway that buffers local telemetry and bridges selected topics to a cloud broker, local development and testing of mqtt clients without provisioning a cloud iot service, an air-gapped deployment where a broker with no licence server and no phone-home behaviour is a requirement. Of those, a home or building automation stack where the broker must run on the same small computer as everything else and an industrial gateway that buffers local telemetry and bridges selected topics to a cloud broker are not what Netdata is typically brought in for.
What can Eclipse Mosquitto do that Netdata cannot?
Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener. Netdata covers Per-second collection, Zero-configuration discovery, Edge machine learning, Tiered database engine.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

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

Netdata: Is Netdata fully open source?

The agent is GPLv3. The current dashboard interface is under a separate restrictive licence, so the complete product is open core rather than open source.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Netdata: Can it run without any connection to Netdata Cloud?

Yes, agents work standalone and dashboards can be served locally, but you lose fleet-wide views and need to configure local interface serving deliberately.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

Netdata: Does it replace Prometheus?

For host and container infrastructure metrics it often does. For custom application metrics with an existing exporter ecosystem and long retention, most teams keep both.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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