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  1. Stackups
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  4. Message Queue
  5. NATS vs ZeroMQ

NATS vs ZeroMQ

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

ZeroMQ
ZeroMQ
Stacks258
Followers586
Votes71
GitHub Stars10.6K
Forks2.5K
NATS
NATS
Stacks394
Followers498
Votes60

NATS vs ZeroMQ: What are the differences?

Introduction

NATS and ZeroMQ are two popular messaging systems used in software development. Both of them offer various features and benefits, but they have significant differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore the key differences between NATS and ZeroMQ.

  1. Message Delivery Model: One of the major differences between NATS and ZeroMQ is their message delivery models. NATS follows a publish-subscribe model where messages are published to subjects and subscribers receive messages based on the subjects they have subscribed to. On the other hand, ZeroMQ uses a socket-based messaging pattern where messages are sent directly from one socket to another.

  2. Protocol Support: NATS is based on a lightweight, high-performance messaging protocol called "NATS Protocol", which is designed for efficient message delivery. ZeroMQ, on the other hand, supports multiple messaging patterns as it provides a socket abstraction layer over various protocols such as TCP, PGM, IPC, and more.

  3. Concurrency Model: NATS is built with a lightweight and highly concurrent design, making it suitable for scalable and distributed systems. It provides support for clustering, fault-tolerance, and high availability. ZeroMQ, on the other hand, follows a single-threaded model, which means it requires you to handle concurrency manually if you want to build scalable systems.

  4. Language Bindings: NATS offers language bindings for a wide range of programming languages, including Go, Java, Node.js, Python, and more. This makes it easier to integrate NATS into applications written in different languages. ZeroMQ also provides language bindings for many popular languages, but its range of language support is not as extensive as NATS.

  5. Message Queuing: NATS does not provide built-in message queuing features. It focuses on lightweight messaging with fast delivery and low latency. ZeroMQ, on the other hand, offers a more extensive set of features, including message queuing, load balancing, and pattern-based routing.

  6. Community and Adoption: Both NATS and ZeroMQ have active communities and are widely adopted in the software development community. However, NATS has gained significant popularity in recent years due to its simplicity, performance, and scalability. It has been widely adopted by cloud-native platforms and microservices architectures.

In summary, NATS and ZeroMQ differ in their message delivery models, protocol support, concurrency models, language bindings, support for message queuing, and community adoption. Understanding these differences can help you choose the messaging system that best suits your specific use case and requirements.

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Detailed Comparison

ZeroMQ
ZeroMQ
NATS
NATS

The 0MQ lightweight messaging kernel is a library which extends the standard socket interfaces with features traditionally provided by specialised messaging middleware products. 0MQ sockets provide an abstraction of asynchronous message queues, multiple messaging patterns, message filtering (subscriptions), seamless access to multiple transport protocols and more.

Unlike traditional enterprise messaging systems, NATS has an always-on dial tone that does whatever it takes to remain available. This forms a great base for building modern, reliable, and scalable cloud and distributed systems.

Connect your code in any language, on any platform.;Carries messages across inproc, IPC, TCP, TPIC, multicast.;Smart patterns like pub-sub, push-pull, and router-dealer.;High-speed asynchronous I/O engines, in a tiny library.;Backed by a large and active open source community.;Supports every modern language and platform.;Build any architecture: centralized, distributed, small, or large.;Free software with full commercial support.
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
10.6K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
2.5K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
258
Stacks
394
Followers
586
Followers
498
Votes
71
Votes
60
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 23
    Fast
  • 20
    Lightweight
  • 11
    Transport agnostic
  • 7
    No broker required
  • 4
    Low latency
Cons
  • 5
    No message durability
  • 3
    Not a very reliable system - message delivery wise
  • 1
    M x N problem with M producers and N consumers
Pros
  • 22
    Fastest pub-sub system out there
  • 16
    Rock solid
  • 12
    Easy to grasp
  • 4
    Easy, Fast, Secure
  • 4
    Light-weight
Cons
  • 2
    Persistence with Jetstream supported
  • 1
    No Persistence
  • 1
    No Order

What are some alternatives to ZeroMQ, NATS?

Firebase

Firebase

Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.

Socket.IO

Socket.IO

It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed.

Kafka

Kafka

Kafka is a distributed, partitioned, replicated commit log service. It provides the functionality of a messaging system, but with a unique design.

RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ gives your applications a common platform to send and receive messages, and your messages a safe place to live until received.

Celery

Celery

Celery is an asynchronous task queue/job queue based on distributed message passing. It is focused on real-time operation, but supports scheduling as well.

PubNub

PubNub

PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server.

Pusher

Pusher

Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features.

Amazon SQS

Amazon SQS

Transmit any volume of data, at any level of throughput, without losing messages or requiring other services to be always available. With SQS, you can offload the administrative burden of operating and scaling a highly available messaging cluster, while paying a low price for only what you use.

NSQ

NSQ

NSQ is a realtime distributed messaging platform designed to operate at scale, handling billions of messages per day. It promotes distributed and decentralized topologies without single points of failure, enabling fault tolerance and high availability coupled with a reliable message delivery guarantee. See features & guarantees.

SignalR

SignalR

SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization.

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