# Feature Comparison
This page lists features supported across different deployment types in detail.
## Core / Enterprise Features
| Features | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **MQTT 5.0 Broker** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Complete MQTT 5.0 protocol implementation |
| **MQTT over QUIC** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Globally pioneering support
In development for Cloud |
| **MQTT Add-ons** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Shared subscription](../messaging/mqtt-shared-subscription.md)
[Exclusive subscription](../messaging/mqtt-exclusive-subscription.md)
[Delayed publish](../messaging/mqtt-delayed-publish.md)
[Auto-subscription](../messaging/mqtt-auto-subscription.md)
[Topic rewrite](../messaging/mqtt-topic-rewrite.md)
More customization options |
| **Multi-protocol Gateways** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | More industry device access |
| **Multi-tenancy** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Higher system flexibility and utilization |
| **Cluster Linking** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Seamless connection of devices and application data |
| **Message Queue** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Unified architecture for data transmission and analysis |
| **Stream Processing** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Higher reliability and disaster recovery capabilities
(Coming soon) |
| **Data Persistence** | ✅ Built-in RocksDB backend or external databases | N/A | N/A | [Improved stability and reliability](../durability/durability_introduction.md) |
| **Schema Registry** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Schema Registry](../data-integration/schema-registry.md) ensures data consistency and compatibility |
| **Message Codec** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Flexible message format conversion for:
JSON, Avro, Protobuf, Custom codec (HTTP/gRPC) |
| **Schema Validation** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Ensuring integrity and legality of messages |
| **Rule Engine** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [SQL-based built-in Rule Engine and real-time data processing](../data-integration/rules.md) |
| **Flow Designer** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Easy orchestration of data integration](../flow-designer/introduction.md) |
| **File Transfer** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ In product roadmap | Unified platform data transmission |
| **Kafka Integration** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [Stream MQTT Data into Apache Kafka](../data-integration/data-bridge-kafka.md) |
| **Enterprise Data Integrations** | ✅ 40+ | ✅ | ✅ 40+ | [Accelerate business development and delivery speed](https://www.emqx.com/en/integrations) |
| **Troubleshooting** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Log Trace](../observability/tracer.md)
[Slow Subscriptions](../observability/slow-subscribers-statistics.md) |
| **Cloud-Native & K8s** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [Reduce system deployment and management costs](../deploy/kubernetes/kubernetes.md) |
| **Edge Computing** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Reduce data transmission latency and costs
[Neuron](https://www.emqx.com/en/products/neuronex)
[NanoMQ](https://www.emqx.com/en/products/nanomq) |
## Scalability and Performance
| Scalability / Performance | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Scalability** | Up to 100 nodes cluster
Up to 100 million MQTT connections per cluster | 1000 auto scale | 1000 - unlimited | [Reaching 100M MQTT connections with EMQX 5.0](https://www.emqx.com/en/blog/reaching-100m-mqtt-connections-with-emqx-5-0) |
| **Availability** | Core-Replica cluster | Masterless cluster | Masterless cluster | |
| **Reliability** | Data persistence in RocksDB with highly available replication | Session persistence | Session persistence | [Highly Reliable MQTT Data Persistence Based on RocksDB](https://www.emqx.com/en/blog/mqtt-persistence-based-on-rocksdb) |
| **Performance** | 5M+ MQTT messages per second | 1000 MQTT messages per second | 5M+ MQTT messages per second | |
| **Latency** | 1~5 millisecond | 1~5 millisecond | 1~5 millisecond | |
| **SLA** | N/A | 99.9% uptime | Up to 99.99% uptime | |
## Clustering Architecture
| Clustering Architecture | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Nodes of Cluster** | 100+ | confidential | confidential | Large-scale clusters |
| **Elastic and resilient scaling at runtime** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Higher system stability and resource utilization |
| **Autoscaling** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Consistency** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Transaction** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Ensuring the atomicity and reliability of data operations |
| **Network Split Recovery** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Cluster failure automatic repair |
| **Node Evacuation & Cluster Rebalance** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | Non-stop cluster maintenance |
| **Autocluster Discoveries** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | static: Discovery based on a static node list
mcast: Discovery with UDP multicast mode
dns: Discovery based on DNS records
etcd: Discovery via etcd
k8s: Discovery via Kubernetes service |
| **Zero Downtime / Hot Upgrades** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | Immediate repair of system vulnerabilities |
| **Hot Patch** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | Ensuring stable system operation |
| **Overload Protection** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | Improving system management efficiency |
| **Multi-cluster Management** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | Enhancing system stability |
| **Cluster Metrics** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
## MQTT and Connectivity
| MQTT & Connectivity | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **MQTT 3.x** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT 5.0** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT Retainer** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT over TCP** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT over TLS** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT over WebSocket** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT over QUIC** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | EMQX is now the only MQTT broker in the world that supports QUIC transport. |
| **LB (Proxy Protocol)** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Proxy protocol v1, v2 |
| **LB (Custom)** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | GmSSL
Smooth connection migration |
| **IPv6 Support** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Multi-protocol Gateway** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **MQTT-SN** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **STOMP** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| **CoAP** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **LwM2M** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| **ExProto** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| **OCPP** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| **JT/808** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **GB/T 32960** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
## Security
| Security | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **TLS/SSL** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Protect data transmission security: TLS 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 |
| **QUIC** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Enhance efficiency of weak network and mobile network data transmission |
| **OCSP Stapling** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Provide more flexible security practices |
| **Flapping Detect** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ In product roadmap | Detect and intercept frequent online and offline connections |
| **Audit Logs** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Support audit tracing for important operations |
| **Dashboard SSO** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Secure and simplified authentication processes |
| **Dashboard / REST API RBAC** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Minimize permissions to ensure system security |
## Authentication and Authorization
| Authentication / Authorization | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ------------------------------------ | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Username / Password** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [Password-Based Authentication](../access-control/authn/pwoverview.md) |
| **JWT** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [JWT Authentication](../access-control/authn/jwt.md) |
| **MQTT 5.0 Enhanced Authentication** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [MQTT 5.0 Enhanced Authentication](../access-control/authn/scram.md) |
| **LDAP Authentication** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ In product roadmap | |
| **PSK Authentication** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Enable PSK Authentication](../network/psk-authentication.md#enable-psk-authentication) |
| **X.509 Certificates** | ✅ | ✅ Managed by EMQX Cloud | ✅ | |
| **Fine-grained Access Control** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Authentication Database Backends** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **ACL Database Backends** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
## Data Integration
As EMQX evolves, it supports an expanding range of data integrations, including but not limited to those listed below.
| Data Integration | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- |
| **MQTT Bridge** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Webhook / HTTP Server** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Aliyun Tablestore** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Apache Kafka / Confluent** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Apache IoTDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Apache Pulsar** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **AWS Kinesis** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **AWS S3** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Azure Event Hubs** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Azure Blob Storage** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Cassandra** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **ClickHouse** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Couchbase** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **DynamoDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Elasticsearch** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **GCP PubSub** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **GreptimeDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **HStreamDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **InfluxDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Microsoft SQL Server** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **MongoDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **MySQL** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **OpenTSDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Oracle Database** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **PostgreSQL** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **RabbitMQ** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Redis** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **RocketMQ** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Snowflake** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **Syskeeper** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **TDengine** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| **TimeScaleDB** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
## Rule Engine
| Rule Engine | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Schema Registry** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Ensure data format consistency |
| **JSON Codec** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Avro Codec** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Protobuf Codec** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Sparkplug B Codec** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **JSON Schema Validation** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Avro Validation** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **ProtoBuf Validation** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Built-in Functions** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Functions available in SQL statements, rich built-in libraries, support custom extensions](../data-integration/rule-sql-builtin-functions.md) |
| **jq Functions** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | Efficient JSON data processing |
| **Event Trigger** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | [Client events](../data-integration/rule-sql-events-and-fields.md#mqtt-events), event-driven business development |
| **Schema Validation** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Message Transformation** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
## Extensibility
| Extensibility | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| **Hooks** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [Hooks](../extensions/hooks.md#hooks) |
| **Plugins** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [Plugins](../extensions/plugins.md#plugins) |
| **Plugin Hot Loading** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
| **Plugin Hot Configuration** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
| **Gateways** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
| **ExHooks / gRPC** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
## Operability
| Operability | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Dashboard** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | EMQX dashboard is feature-rich.
Configs can be hot updated through the dashboard. |
| **Configuration** | ✅ HOCON | N/A | N/A | The HOCON format is simple and concise. |
| **HTTP API** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **CLI** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Config Hot Updates** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
| **Operational Auditing** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
## Observability
| Observability | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Dashboard** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Monitor clusters in real time with an elegant dashboard |
| **Metrics** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Node metrics |
| **Grafana** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Prometheus** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Datadog** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **OpenTelemetry** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Cluster Metrics** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | |
| **Alarm Alerts** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Slow Subscription Monitoring** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Topic Monitoring** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Client Monitoring** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Log Trace** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
## Cloud Native and K8S
| Cloud Native & K8s | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Docker** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/emqx/emqx-enterprise) |
| **Kubernetes Operator** | ✅ | N/A | N/A | [EMQX Kubernetes Operator](https://www.emqx.com/en/emqx-kubernetes-operator) |
## Cloud Platform Availability
| Cloud Platform | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| --------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **AWS Marketplace** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [AWS Marketplace: EMQX Platform (Pay as you go)](https://docs.emqx.com/en/cloud/latest/billing/aws_marketplace.html) |
| **Azure Marketplace** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [Azure Marketplace: EMQX Platform](https://docs.emqx.com/en/cloud/latest/billing/azure_marketplace.html) |
| **GCP Marketplace** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [GCP Marketplace](https://docs.emqx.com/en/cloud/latest/billing/gcp_marketplace.html) |
| **AWS** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **Azure** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| **GCP** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
## MQTT Tools and SDKs
| MQTT Tools & SDKs | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **MQTT Desktop Client** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | MQTT X - The best tool for learning MQTT.
[MQTTX: Your All-in-one MQTT Client Toolbox](https://mqttx.app/) |
| **MQTT CLI** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [MQTTX CLI: A Powerful and Easy-to-use MQTT CLI Tool](https://mqttx.app/cli) |
| **MQTT Web Tool** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Feature-rich and Easy-to-use.
[MQTTX Web: Easy-to-use MQTT Websocket Client Tool](https://mqttx.app/web) |
| **MQTT Benchmark** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - emqx/emqtt-bench: Lightweight MQTT benchmark tool written in Erlang](https://github.com/emqx/emqtt-bench) |
| **MQTT & JMeter** | ✅ JMeter Plugin | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - emqx/mqtt-jmeter: MQTT JMeter Plugin](https://github.com/emqx/mqtt-jmeter) |
| **MQTT SDK for C** | ✅ NanoSDK | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - nanomq/NanoSDK: MQTT 5.0-compliant SDK with QUIC support in NNG flavor](https://github.com/nanomq/NanoSDK) |
| **MQTT Erlang SDK** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - emqx/emqtt: Erlang MQTT 5.0 Client](https://github.com/emqx/emqtt) |
| **MQTT iOS SDK** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - emqx/CocoaMQTT: MQTT 5.0 client library for iOS and macOS written in Swift](https://github.com/emqx/CocoaMQTT)
[GitHub - emqx/swift-mqtt: An MQTT Client over TCP and QUIC protocol](https://github.com/emqx/swift-mqtt) |
| **MQTT QUIC Client** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | [GitHub - emqx/quic: QUIC protocol for Erlang & Elixir](https://github.com/emqx/quic) |
## Support Services
| Support Services | Self-Hosted (Enterprise) | MQTT as a Service (Serverless) | MQTT as a Service (Dedicated Flex) | Notes and Links |
| --------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- | --------------- |
| **Technical Support** | 5×8, 7×24 Global Support | 5×8 Global Support | 5×8, 7×24 Global Support | |
| **Architecture Consulting** | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| **Project Integration** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |
| **Custom Development** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | |