We frequently get asked what the differences are between RabbitMQ and Apache Kafka. Our sister service CloudAMQP is operating and providing support to the largest fleet of RabbitMQ clusters in the world, so we have some insights to share.

In the table below we've outlined the biggest differences and similarities between Apache Kafka and RabbitMQ.

RabbitMQ

Apache Kafka

What it is?

RabbitMQ is a solid, mature, general purpose message broker that supports several standardized protocols such as AMQP

Apache Kafka is a message bus optimized for high-ingress data streams and replay

Primary use

High-throughput and reliable background jobs, communication and integration within, and between applications.

Build applications that process and re-process streamed data on disk

License

Open Source: Mozilla Public License

Open Source: Apache License 2.0

Written in

Erlang

Scala (JVM)

Client libraries

Many mature libraries, including: Ruby, Python, Node.js, Clojure, Go, Java and C

Many, including: Ruby, Python, Node.js and Java

Support for HA

Yes

Yes

Federated queues

Yes

No

Complex routing scenarios

Yes

No

Scaling strategies

Mostly vertical

Built from the ground up with horizontal scaling in mind

Hosted solution & Enterprise Support

Available at CloudAMQP

Available at CloudKarafka

Are you still unsure, Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ?

Contact us and we can guide you along the road, independent of if that road leads towards Apache Kafka, or RabbitMQ. We've been providing both services for years and have unmatched operation experience from a huge range of customers. There's no scaling or implementation problem we can't solve.