EMQX review: the open-source MQTT broker for IoT and AI data streaming. See features, cloud pricing plans, self-hosting options, and top alternatives.
EMQX is an open-source MQTT message broker built to connect and process real-time data streams from IoT devices, industrial equipment, and connected vehicles at massive scale. Originally released in 2013 and now maintained by EMQ Technologies, it has grown from a lightweight Erlang-based broker into what the company calls a unified MQTT platform for AI and IoT data streaming.
The project is one of the most widely deployed MQTT implementations in the world, with more than 10,000 GitHub stars, over 20 million downloads, and production use by more than 1,500 enterprises including BMW, Volkswagen, Ericsson, HPE, and TSMC.
EMQX supports the full MQTT 3.1/3.1.1/5.0 specification plus MQTT over QUIC, TLS/SSL, and WebSocket transport, and can cluster horizontally to handle up to 100 million concurrent connections in benchmark testing.
A built-in rule engine and more than 40 pre-built data integrations let teams route device data directly into Kafka, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, cloud data warehouses, and AI pipelines without custom bridge code, alongside authentication, access control lists, and a real-time monitoring dashboard.
EMQX is free to self-host for development, testing, and single-node production use under its Business Source License 1.1 (each version reverts to Apache 2.0 after four years). Multi-node clustering in production requires a commercial license.
For managed hosting, EMQX Cloud offers a pay-as-you-go Serverless plan with a free monthly quota, a Dedicated Flex plan starting at $234/month for an isolated cluster with a 99.99% SLA, a Bring-Your-Own-Cloud plan, and a custom-priced self-managed Enterprise tier.
Yes. EMQX is free to download and self-host for development, testing, and single-node production deployments under the Business Source License 1.1. A commercial license is required for multi-node clustering in production or for embedding it in a commercially distributed product.
EMQX moved from Apache License 2.0 to the Business Source License (BSL) 1.1 starting with version 5.9. Each version automatically converts back to Apache 2.0 four years after release.
EMQX has been benchmarked supporting up to 100 million concurrent MQTT connections on a single 23-node cluster, making it one of the most scalable MQTT brokers available.
Serverless is a fully managed, pay-as-you-go EMQX offering with a free monthly quota covering up to 1,000 connections and limited sessions, traffic, and rule actions before usage-based billing applies.
EMQX is used by IoT platform teams, industrial manufacturers, automotive companies building connected-vehicle platforms, and telecom operators, including BMW, Volkswagen, Geely, Ericsson, HPE, and TSMC.
Eclipse Mosquitto is a lightweight, single-node MQTT broker well suited to small deployments, while EMQX is designed for horizontal clustering and much higher connection volumes, along with built-in data integrations and a management dashboard.