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Networking · head to head

Eclipse Mosquitto vs OpenEBS

Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
OpenEBS logo

OpenEBS

Cloud

Open source container-attached storage for Kubernetes

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.; OpenEBS there is no vendor on the other end of an incident unless you separately contract DataCore, so an outage at three in the morning is resolved by your own team and a public Slack channel.
  • They diverge on capability: Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, OpenEBS covers Replicated engine.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Eclipse Mosquitto and OpenEBS differ
AttributeEclipse MosquittoOpenEBS
PlatformsLinux, Windows, macOS, DockerLinux
CategoryNetworkingCloud

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 Eclipse Mosquitto

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

Only in OpenEBS

  • Replicated engine
  • Local PV engines
  • Kubernetes-native management
  • Snapshots and clones
  • No licence fee
  • Hardware independence

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 OpenEBS
  • An industrial gateway that buffers local telemetry and bridges selected topics to a cloud brokernot OpenEBS
  • Local development and testing of MQTT clients without provisioning a cloud IoT servicenot OpenEBS
  • An air-gapped deployment where a broker with no licence server and no phone-home behaviour is a requirementnot OpenEBS

OpenEBS

  • Running Cassandra or Kafka on Kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficientnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal Kubernetes without a per node subscriptionnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • An edge or lab deployment where a commercial storage licence cannot be justifiednot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Replacing hostpath volumes with something that has snapshots and a Container Storage Interface drivernot 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.

OpenEBS

  • There is no vendor on the other end of an incident unless you separately contract DataCore, so an outage at three in the morning is resolved by your own team and a public Slack channel.
  • The project has several storage engines with different maturity and different operational characteristics, and choosing the wrong one for your workload produces poor results that look like a product failure.
  • Documentation and upgrade guidance assume real Kubernetes storage knowledge, so teams without that expertise underestimate the operational load they are taking on.
  • Project governance shifted after DataCore acquired MayaData in 2021, which means the direction of a supposedly neutral project is influenced by one commercial sponsor.
  • Disaster recovery, cross-cluster replication and policy-driven data services are thinner than in the commercial alternatives, so organisations with those requirements end up building them or buying a product anyway.

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

OpenEBS

Free
  • OpenEBSFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed
    • All storage engines included
    • No node or capacity limits

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 OpenEBS if

  • You need replicated engine.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux.
  • You also want local pv engines.
OpenEBS review

Questions people ask

Is Eclipse Mosquitto or OpenEBS better?
Neither clearly leads. Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and OpenEBS at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Eclipse Mosquitto or OpenEBS?
Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and OpenEBS at Free.
Does Eclipse Mosquitto or OpenEBS run on more platforms?
Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker. OpenEBS runs on Linux.
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 OpenEBS is typically brought in for.
What can Eclipse Mosquitto do that OpenEBS cannot?
Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener. OpenEBS covers Replicated engine, Local PV engines, Kubernetes-native management, Snapshots and clones.

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.

OpenEBS: Who supports it in production?

The project is community supported. Commercial support is available from DataCore, which acquired the original sponsor MayaData in 2021. Establish that relationship before production, not during an incident.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

OpenEBS: Which engine should we use?

If your application replicates its own data, use a Local engine and avoid replicating twice. If it does not, such as with PostgreSQL, use the Replicated engine.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

OpenEBS: Does it cost anything?

No licence fee. The cost is operational, and a support contract if you want someone accountable.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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