RabbitMQ

Free plan Open source APILinuxMacSelf-hostedWebWindows

What RabbitMQ is

RabbitMQ is an open-source messaging and streaming broker for connecting applications, including distributed microservices, real-time data systems, and IoT. Publishers can direct messages to one or more consumers using routing, filtering, streaming, and federation. Acknowledgements and cluster replication support reliable delivery, with configurable delivery guarantees. It supports AMQP 0-9-1, AMQP 1.0, MQTT, STOMP, RabbitMQ Streams, HTTP, and WebSocket, including browser communication over WebSocket. Client libraries cover Java, .NET/C#, Erlang, and other languages; the project also offers a community Docker image and Kubernetes operators. RabbitMQ can run in cloud or on-premises environments, on local machines, physical or virtual hardware, and in containers. Linux, Windows, and macOS are supported. Operators can limit user access by virtual host, and built-in TLS protects client connections and encrypted inter-node traffic. The self-managed Open Source RabbitMQ Server is free under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, with best-effort community support. VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ is a commercial offering with no listed price.

Who it suits

RabbitMQ suits teams connecting distributed applications or streaming data across services and environments. Its free self-managed server is an option for teams comfortable with best-effort community support.

What it does well

Routes messages to one or more consumers.
Supports six listed messaging and streaming protocols.
Runs in cloud, on-premises, and container environments.
Includes access controls and built-in TLS.
Free self-managed server is available.

What to know first

Community support is best-effort for the free server.
VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ has no listed price.
Systems with less than 100 MB of RAM are unsupported.
Maximum message size is 16 MB.

Limits

The open-source plan is self-managed and has best-effort community support. RabbitMQ documentation says z/OS, most mainframes, and systems with less than 100 MB of RAM are unsupported; the maximum message size is 16 MB.

Plans

Plan	Billed and limits	Price
Open Source RabbitMQ Server	Free under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 · Self-managed broker; support is community-based on a best-effort basis	Free
Open-source RabbitMQ	self-hosted broker · community support	Free
VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ	Contact for commercial offering · 24/7 expert support · extended support lifecycle · enterprise features	On request
Tanzu RabbitMQ	enterprise edition · 24/7 expert support · longer lifecycle · disaster recovery · compliance	On request

As rabbitmq.com lists them, read 29 Sept 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.

Getting started

Visit https://www.rabbitmq.com/.
Choose the self-managed Open Source RabbitMQ Server or the commercial VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ offering.
For the open-source server, select a supported platform: Linux, Windows, or macOS.
Deploy on a cloud environment, on-premises, a local machine, physical or virtual hardware, or in containers.

Verdict

RabbitMQ combines multiple messaging patterns and protocols with configurable delivery guarantees and deployment options. The free server is self-managed and community-supported; commercial support is available through VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ, with pricing not listed.

Questions

Is RabbitMQ free?

The Open Source RabbitMQ Server costs nothing under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ is a commercial offering with pricing listed as Contact.

Which protocols does RabbitMQ support?

It supports AMQP 0-9-1, AMQP 1.0, MQTT, STOMP, RabbitMQ Streams, HTTP, and WebSocket.

Where can RabbitMQ run?

It can run in cloud environments, on-premises, on local machines, on physical or virtual hardware, and in containers. Linux, Windows, and macOS are supported.

What support comes with the open-source server?

Community support is best-effort through GitHub, Discord, a mailing list, and IRC. VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ offers 24/7 support from its core engineering team.

Is RabbitMQ open source?

The Open Source RabbitMQ Server is offered under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

Facts from RabbitMQ's own pages

Access control: RabbitMQ allows operators to restrict users to specific virtual hosts and limit their permissions within each virtual host. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Built-in integrations: Core plugins include LDAP, OAuth 2.0, HTTP authentication, TLS certificate authentication, federation, MQTT, Prometheus, STOMP, Shovel and WebSockets bridges. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Client guarantees: The maintained AMQP 1.0 libraries provide automatic connection and topology recovery and at-least-once delivery guarantees. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Commercial security: VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ lists FIPS 140-2 compliance for TLS, OAuth 2.0 forward proxy support, and continuous CVE scanning among its enterprise security features. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Commercial support: VMware Tanzu RabbitMQ offers 24/7 support from its core engineering team, and the contact page says highest severity issues receive attention within 30 minutes, 24/7/365. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Community support: The RabbitMQ project provides best-effort community support through GitHub, Discord, a mailing list, and IRC. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Company profile: LinkedIn lists RabbitMQ as a public software-development company founded in 2007, headquartered in London, with 10,001+ employees. · uk.linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
Current release: The latest listed release is RabbitMQ 4.3.6, released on 16 September 2026. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Delivery reliability: RabbitMQ supports message acknowledgements and message replication across a cluster. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Deployment: RabbitMQ can run on cloud infrastructure, on-premises, local machines, physical or virtual hardware, containers and IaaS providers. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Documentation depth: Versioned documentation is organized for developers and administrators and includes tutorials, configuration, management, monitoring and broker comparisons. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Founded: 2007 · rabbitmq.com, 23 Sept 2026
Integrations: RabbitMQ provides client libraries for Java, .NET/C#, Erlang, and other languages, and offers a community Docker image and Kubernetes operators. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Java client: The Java client is triple-licensed under Apache 2.0, Mozilla Public License 2.0 and GPL 2.0, and its 5.x series requires JDK 8 or newer. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: G2 operations and delivery: G2 reviewers report difficult cluster management, an aging UI, tedious debugging of lost messages, configuration sensitivity and concerns about ordering or message-size limits. · g2.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: Gartner scale complexity: Gartner reviewers report that clustered setup and maintenance become complex at scale, the UI is dated, and comprehensive observability often requires custom Grafana dashboards. · gartner.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: TrustRadius administration: TrustRadius reviewers cite Windows clustering quirks, disk-full transaction stoppages, .NET recovery problems, difficult advanced administration and limited historical monitoring. · trustradius.com, 15 Oct 2026
Management API: The management plugin supplies an HTTP API, browser UI and rabbitmqadmin command-line tool for administration and monitoring. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Messaging patterns: RabbitMQ supports routing, filtering, streaming, and federation to direct messages from publishers to one or more consumers. · rabbitmq.com, 29 Sept 2026
Messaging protocols: RabbitMQ supports open protocols including AMQP 1.0, MQTT 5.0, STOMP and other protocol plugins. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Monitoring limitation: The built-in management UI stores only recent data and has basic visualizations, so the documentation recommends Prometheus and Grafana for long-term monitoring. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
.NET client: The .NET client is distributed through NuGet, has an online API reference and is developed publicly on GitHub. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Notable news: RabbitMQ 4.3, announced 23 April 2026, added 32 strict quorum-queue priority levels, delayed retries, consumer timeouts, Khepri metadata storage and AMQP 1.0 improvements. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026
Official client SDKs: RabbitMQ maintains AMQP 1.0 clients for Java, .NET, Go, Python and JavaScript. · rabbitmq.com, 15 Oct 2026