Softwr

Networking · head to head

Eclipse Mosquitto vs Presto

Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Presto logo

Presto

Databases

The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork

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.; Presto the original creators and most of the active contributor base left for Trino in 2020, so Presto has the smaller community, fewer connectors and slower feature delivery of the two branches.
  • They diverge on capability: Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Presto covers Federated querying.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Eclipse Mosquitto and Presto differ
AttributeEclipse MosquittoPresto
PlatformsLinux, Windows, macOS, DockerLinux, Docker, Kubernetes
CategoryNetworkingDatabases

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 Presto

  • Federated querying
  • In-memory execution
  • Open table format support
  • Presto C++ workers
  • ANSI SQL
  • Pluggable connectors

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

Presto

  • An existing PrestoDB estate that needs continued upgrades rather than a migration to Trinonot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A team buying IBM watsonx.data, where Presto is the underlying query enginenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Joining a Hive or Iceberg lake to an operational PostgreSQL database in one query without an ETL stepnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Very large scale interactive SQL where the Meta-tested branch is a specific requirementnot 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.

Presto

  • The original creators and most of the active contributor base left for Trino in 2020, so Presto has the smaller community, fewer connectors and slower feature delivery of the two branches.
  • Documentation, tutorials and Stack Overflow answers for the two projects are frequently mixed up, and a solution written for Trino often does not apply, which costs real debugging time.
  • It is a query engine with no storage of its own, so query performance is dictated by your file layout, partitioning and statistics, and a badly organised lake makes Presto look slow.
  • Memory-bound execution means a single large join can fail the whole query rather than spilling gracefully, and tuning cluster memory settings is a persistent operational chore.
  • Commercial support has consolidated into IBM since the Ahana acquisition, so the independent vendor market that once existed around Presto is largely gone.

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

Presto

Free
  • PrestoFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Presto Foundation governance under the Linux Foundation
    • No node or query 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 Presto if

  • You need federated querying.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want in-memory execution.
Presto review

Questions people ask

Is Eclipse Mosquitto or Presto better?
Neither clearly leads. Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Presto at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Eclipse Mosquitto or Presto?
Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Presto at Free.
Does Eclipse Mosquitto or Presto run on more platforms?
Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker. Presto runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
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 Presto is typically brought in for.
What can Eclipse Mosquitto do that Presto cannot?
Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener. Presto covers Federated querying, In-memory execution, Open table format support, Presto C++ workers.

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.

Presto: Is this Presto or Trino?

This is PrestoDB, the branch that stayed at Facebook and moved to the Linux Foundation. Trino is the 2020 fork by the original creators.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

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

Presto: Which should I choose for a new project?

Trino, in most cases. It has the larger community, more connectors and more commercial options.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

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

Presto: Who maintains Presto now?

Principally Meta, Uber and IBM, which acquired the Presto vendor Ahana in 2023.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

Presto: Is it still actively released?

Yes, releases continue on a regular cadence under the Presto Foundation.

Share

Related pages

More on Eclipse Mosquitto

More on Presto

Keep looking

Other head to heads