RobustMQ
Fastest to get started
Why teams pick it
Launch quickly with streamlined setup and onboarding.
Open-source alternatives to Azure Service Bus
Compare community-driven replacements for Azure Service Bus in message brokers & queues workflows. We curate active, self-hostable options with transparent licensing so you can evaluate the right fit quickly.
Azure Service Bus
Azure Service Bus is a fully managed enterprise message broker that provides cloud-based messaging between decoupled systems using message queues and publish-subscribe topics. It enables reliable asynchronous communication among microservices and enterprise applications, supporting features like message sessions, transactions, and dead-lettering. By using Service Bus, developers can build distributed systems with loose coupling and high reliability, buffering load spikes and ensuring messages are delivered even if receiving components are temporarily offline.Read more
Key stats
- 8Alternatives
- 6Active development
Recent commits in the last 6 months
- 5Permissive licenses
MIT, Apache, and similar licenses
Counts reflect projects currently indexed as alternatives to Azure Service Bus.
Start with these picks
These projects match the most common migration paths for teams replacing Azure Service Bus.
RabbitMQ
AI-powered workflows
Why teams pick it
High availability options via quorum queues and clustering
All open-source alternatives
RobustMQ
High-performance multi-protocol messaging platform for cloud-native AI workloads
Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployRust
Why teams choose it
- Rust core delivers memory safety and ultra‑low latency
- Native support for MQTT, AMQP, Kafka, and RocketMQ
- Pluggable storage backends (local, S3, HDFS, etc.)
Watch for
Early preview stage; not yet production‑ready
Migration highlight
Real‑time IoT telemetry ingestion
Scalable MQTT ingestion with low latency and per‑device isolation
RabbitMQ
Robust multi-protocol messaging broker for cloud-native applications
Active developmentAI-powered workflowsJavaScript
Why teams choose it
- Support for AMQP, MQTT, STOMP, and RabbitMQ Stream protocols
- Quorum queues for data safety and consistency
- Official Kubernetes Cluster Operator for automated deployment
Watch for
Erlang runtime may be unfamiliar to some ops teams
Migration highlight
Microservices communication
Decoupled services exchange messages reliably via AMQP or MQTT, scaling horizontally.
PGMQ
Lightweight PostgreSQL‑based message queue with exactly‑once delivery
Active developmentFast to deployIntegration-friendlyPLpgSQL
Why teams choose it
- Exactly‑once delivery with configurable visibility timeout
- Zero external services – pure SQL functions in a Postgres extension
- SQS‑compatible API for easy migration
Watch for
Performance limited to PostgreSQL's capabilities
Migration highlight
Event‑driven microservices communication
Services publish events to a PGMQ queue and consume them reliably with exactly‑once semantics, eliminating external broker costs.
NSQ
Scalable, fault-tolerant messaging for billions of events daily
Permissive licenseFast to deployAI-powered workflowsGo
Why teams choose it
- Decentralized topology with no single point of failure
- At‑least‑once delivery guarantee for reliable messaging
- Zero runtime dependencies – pure compiled binaries
Watch for
Master branch is a development line; use tagged releases for stability
Migration highlight
Log aggregation across data centers
Collects billions of log entries in real time, delivering them to processing services with fault tolerance.
ElasticMQ
Lightweight SQS‑compatible message queue for testing and development
Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployScala
Why teams choose it
- SQS‑compatible REST interface for seamless integration
- Runs standalone, via Docker, or embedded in Scala/Java apps
- Optional UI for real‑time queue statistics
Watch for
Not a full replacement for Amazon SQS in production
Migration highlight
Local development of SQS‑based services
Run ElasticMQ locally to test message handling without AWS costs.
BlazingMQ
High-performance, fault-tolerant distributed message queue for modern workloads
Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployC++
Why teams choose it
- Durable, fault‑tolerant queues with strong consistency
- Multiple routing strategies (work, priority, fan‑out, broadcast)
- Built‑in compression and poison‑pill detection
Watch for
Primary broker only available in C++, limiting native extensions
Migration highlight
Real‑time trade data distribution
Ensures low‑latency, ordered delivery of market data to multiple consumer services
SmoothMQ
SmoothMQ: Drop-in SQS replacement with UI, tracing, and scheduling
Integration-friendlyAI-powered workflowsGo
Why teams choose it
- SQS‑compatible API works with any existing client
- Integrated web UI for queue management and message search
- Built‑in observability, tracing, and rate‑limiting
Watch for
Does not implement the full AWS SQS feature set (e.g., FIFO, dead‑letter queues)
Migration highlight
Local Development
Run a private SQS endpoint on a developer machine to test queue interactions without AWS costs.
Apache Pulsar
Scalable, low‑latency pub‑sub platform for real‑time data streams
Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployJava
Why teams choose it
- Horizontal scalability to millions of topics and messages per second
- Strong ordering and consistency guarantees
- Multi‑tenant security with authentication, authorization, and quotas
Watch for
Requires specific Java versions (8, 11, or 17) depending on release
Migration highlight
Streaming telemetry from IoT devices
Collects millions of sensor events per second, stores them durably, and forwards to analytics pipelines with guaranteed ordering.
Choosing a message brokers & queues alternative
Teams replacing Azure Service Bus in message brokers & queues workflows typically weigh self-hosting needs, integration coverage, and licensing obligations.
- 6 options are actively maintained with recent commits.
Tip: shortlist one hosted and one self-hosted option so stakeholders can compare trade-offs before migrating away from Azure Service Bus.