NanoMQ
An ultra-lightweight and blazing-fast MQTT broker for the IoT edge.
Overview
NanoMQ is an open-source MQTT broker that is part of the EMQ X family, specifically designed for edge computing. Its primary characteristics are its extremely small footprint and high performance, making it suitable for deployment on resource-constrained edge devices, gateways, and industrial PCs. It is fully compliant with MQTT 3.1.1 and 5.0 and can act as a bridge to cloud MQTT services, enabling seamless edge-to-cloud communication. It also supports protocols beyond MQTT, such as ZeroMQ and nanomsg.
✨ Key Features
- Ultra-lightweight (low memory and CPU usage)
- High performance on edge hardware
- MQTT 5.0 & 3.1.1 support
- Bridging to cloud MQTT brokers (e.g., EMQX, AWS IoT)
- Multi-protocol support (MQTT, ZeroMQ, nanomsg)
- Rule Engine for edge data processing
🎯 Key Differentiators
- Extremely lightweight and high-performance for edge devices
- Based on a modern multi-threading actor model
- Can act as a message bus for multiple protocols, not just MQTT
Unique Value: Provides a blazing-fast, ultra-lightweight messaging engine for the IoT edge, enabling reliable and efficient data collection, processing, and bridging in resource-constrained environments.
🎯 Use Cases (5)
✅ Best For
- Acting as a local MQTT broker on an industrial gateway, collecting data from PLCs and bridging it to a cloud platform.
- Message bus for inter-process communication on edge devices.
💡 Check With Vendor
Verify these considerations match your specific requirements:
- Large-scale cloud deployments requiring clustering and millions of connections (use EMQX instead)
🏆 Alternatives
Offers significantly better performance on multi-core edge devices compared to Mosquitto due to its multi-threaded architecture. It is more focused on being a pure broker/message bus than a comprehensive edge platform like AWS IoT Greengrass.
💻 Platforms
✅ Offline Mode Available
🔌 Integrations
💰 Pricing
Free tier: Completely free and open source (MIT License).
🔄 Similar Tools in MQTT & IoT Protocols
HiveMQ
A enterprise-ready MQTT platform for fast, reliable, and secure movement of data to and from connect...
EMQX
An open-source, highly scalable, and reliable MQTT broker for IoT, IIoT, and connected vehicles....
Mosquitto
A lightweight open-source message broker that implements the MQTT protocol....
AWS IoT Core
A managed cloud service that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applicat...
Azure IoT Hub
A managed service, hosted in the cloud, that acts as a central message hub for bi-directional commun...
ThingsBoard
An open-source IoT platform for data collection, processing, visualization, and device management....