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Networking · head to head

Eclipse Mosquitto vs Vagrant

Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vagrant logo

Vagrant

Cloud

Development environments made easy

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.; Vagrant vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • They diverge on capability: Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Vagrant covers Box management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Eclipse Mosquitto and Vagrant differ
AttributeEclipse MosquittoVagrant
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeopen-source
PlatformsLinux, Windows, macOS, DockerLinux, Windows, Mac
CategoryNetworkingCloud
FoundedUnknown2010

Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 Vagrant

  • Box management
  • Provider support
  • Multi-machine setups
  • Provisioners
  • Networking
  • Synced folders
  • Snapshots
  • Plugins

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

Vagrant

  • Reproducible local development environments defined in a Vagrantfilenot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Provisioning identical VMs across VirtualBox, VMware and Hyper-V for a teamnot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • Sandboxing multi-machine setups on a developer laptopnot 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.

Vagrant

  • Vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Vagrant to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions of Vagrant
  • Each version converts to the MPL 2.0 Change License only four years after that version is first published
  • Uses that fall outside the Additional Use Grant require a separately negotiated licence from the licensor

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

Vagrant

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Development environment provisioning
    • Multiple providers
    • Provisioner support

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 Vagrant if

  • You need box management.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Mac.
  • You also want provider support.
Vagrant review

Questions people ask

Is Eclipse Mosquitto or Vagrant better?
Neither clearly leads. Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Vagrant at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Eclipse Mosquitto or Vagrant?
Eclipse Mosquitto starts at Free and Vagrant at Free.
Does Eclipse Mosquitto or Vagrant run on more platforms?
Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker. Vagrant runs on Linux, Windows, Mac.
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 Vagrant is typically brought in for.
What can Eclipse Mosquitto do that Vagrant cannot?
Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener. Vagrant covers Box management, Provider support, Multi-machine setups, Provisioners.

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.

Vagrant: Is Vagrant free to use?

Vagrant is a free, open-source command-line utility for managing virtual machine lifecycles.

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.

Vagrant: Does Vagrant offer a paid tier?

Vagrant itself is free. HashiCorp offers a HCP Vagrant Registry with a free tier for use with Vagrant.

Source
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.

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