MQTT vs Other IoT Messaging Protocols: Detailed Comparison

To see that the world is interconnected, simply looking around is enough. Smart homes and wearables, industrial systems, and connected cities — all of them cannot do without a reliable, convenient, scalable, and secure communication protocol. The latter is what we want to explain to you today in our detailed IoT messaging protocols comparison.

WebbyLab, as an experienced IoT development vendor, will elaborate on various communication protocols, including MQTT, AMQP, XMPP, DDS, and CoAP. We’ll explore their features and use cases to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the options available. Leveraging our extensive background in MQTT, we’ll show you how to use this specific protocol in IoT systems.

 WebbyLab’s 2Smart Cloud platform leverages the MQTT protocol.

Why Are IoT Messaging Protocols Important?

IoT devices generate immense volumes of data that must be collected, processed, and shared. Reliable and swift exchange of this information within the IoT ecosystem is even more critical. But what’s the role of communication protocols in this process?

The most efficient messaging protocol IoT network offers the following advantages:

• Adapting to different network configurations
• Supporting low-power devices
• Handling connectivity interruptions
• Ensuring data security 
• Enabling real-time data exchange and status updates
• Ensuring interoperability between devices and systems

Thus, the messaging protocols allow for reliable data delivery in dynamic and often unpredictable IoT environments.

MQTT vs AMQP Protocol

Let’s start with our IoT messaging protocols comparison. Take a glance at MQTT and AMQP and their brief descriptions:

• MQTT — a lightweight messaging protocol designed for efficient communication and data exchange in IoT applications. 
• AMQP — an advanced messaging protocol that enables reliable communication between distributed systems, widely used in enterprise messaging and financial services.

Here’s a quick comparison of these protocols’ main features:

MQTT vs AMQP: In-Depth Comparison

Since MQTT and AMQP are the most popular choices for IoT, let’s compare these two more thoroughly. We’ll elaborate on the points mentioned in the table above to give you a complete picture of these messaging protocols.

• Architecture

MQTT follows a lightweight publish/subscribe (or client/broker) architecture. In this scenario, MQTT brokers are intermediaries between the MQTT clients and their intended subscribers.

The workflow of an MQTT broker.

AMQP follows client/broker and client/server architectures. It provides an extensible framework for building complex messaging scenarios in IoT systems.

• Messaging Scenarios

MQTT excels in publish-subscribe messaging scenarios. It supports a straightforward topic-based messaging model, where publishers send messages to specific topics, and subscribers receive those messages.

The AMQP protocol supports various messaging scenarios, including publish-subscribe, publish-consume, lifetime, and more. It offers greater flexibility and fine-grained control over message routing and delivery.

A publish-consume messaging scenario of the AMQP broker.

• Transactions

Transactions are predefined sequences of message exchanges between two communicating nodes. MQTT is limited in such scenarios, providing the following semantic options: Publish, Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Connect, Disconnect, and Close. AMQP, in turn, offers way more: Deliver, Publish, Get, Select, Ack, Nack, Recover, Delete, Reject, Open, and Close.

• User Security

MQTT offers TSL to authorize client-broker connections, a network-level firewall for broker protection, and encryption for MQTT packet security. AMQP provides a range of authentication options, including usernames/passwords and certificates. It also supports encryption and data integrity through protocols like TLS and SASL.

The MQTT using TSL and a firewall for security.

• Reliability

MQTT and AMQP offer quality-of-service (QoS) to control message delivery reliability. Yet, while AMQP supports only two levels of QoS, MQTT has three. They are as follows:

• QoS0 sends messages without requiring feedback from the broker
• QoS1 resends messages until a confirmation is received
• QoS2 ensures the broker sends a confirmation for each message sent
• Scalability

Both MQTT and AMQP offer capabilities to handle large-scale deployments. Yet, owing to MQTT’s lightweight nature and publish/subscribe architecture, it’s easier to scale.

• Extensibility

MQTT is less extensible than AMQP but provides simplicity and efficiency for resource-limited environments. AMQP, on the other hand, offers a rich and extensible data model. It supports advanced features like message properties, annotations, and header sections.

MQTT vs XMPP Protocol

Let’s continue with our comparison of IoT messaging protocols and go into greater depth about XMPP and MQTT. Here’s the table outlining these solutions’ core advantages, drawbacks, and use cases:

Both of these protocols are valuable for specific use cases. While MQTT may be perfect for IoT environments with limited resources, XMPP works well for instant messaging, offering advanced extensibility.

MQTT vs DDS Protocol

We’ve come to the point of finding the difference between DDS vs MQTT. Look at the core distinctions and similarities between these messaging protocols in the table below:

MQTT protocols allow smart devices in the home automation system to communicate seamlessly, as these solutions are lightweight and well-suited for resource-constrained settings. DDS, in turn, can be a good choice for critical healthcare, the military, and security facilities for its robust reliability and prompt real-time performance.

MQTT vs CoAP Protocol

Let’s study MQTT and CoAP as part of our IoT communication protocols comparison. Here are the primary points:

Both MQTT and CoAP work well for constrained networks and offer low power consumption. It makes them suitable for IoT systems, yet, MQTT excels by providing reliability and scalability.

IoT Messaging Protocols Use Cases

We’ve briefly mentioned the use cases in our IoT network messaging protocol comparison. Let’s now study each real-life application of MQTT, AMQP, DDS, and CoAP in greater detail.

MQTT Use Cases:

• IoT applications in industrial automation, smart agriculture, automotive, environmental monitoring, and smart home systems
• Use cases in energy management solutions
• Amazon, Bosch, and IBM Watson leverage MQTT

AMQP Use Cases:

• Use cases in financial services for real-time data streaming, transaction processing, and secure communication between financial institutions
• Applications in enterprise messaging for reliable communication between distributed systems
• JPMorgan, Google, NASA, and Mozilla leverage AMQP

DDS Use Cases:

• Real-time monitoring in aerospace, defense, automotive, and industrial automation systems
• Industrial IoT applications in predictive maintenance, supply chain management, and manufacturing processes
• Volkswagen, Aptiv, and LocalGrid leverage DDS

CoAP Use Cases:

• IoT deployments for resource-constrained networks and devices like smart sensors and actuators
• Use cases in home automation systems
• Cisco and Intel leverage CoAP

WebbyLab Experience in IoT Messaging Protocols

WebbyLab, as an expert IoT technology vendor, has extensively worked with the MQTT protocol. Here’s our expertise in this regard.

MQTT serves as the communication protocol across our three products, namely 2Smart Cloud, 2Smart Standalone, and Propuskator. It enables seamless interaction between clients (including end users and our microservices) and devices, empowering users with device management, monitoring, and control options through mobile or web applications.

WebbyLab’s 2Smart Standalone system uses the MQTT protocol for communication.

We chose MQTT as our core protocol for several reasons:

• Real-time communication enables instant updates from devices and immediate execution of commands sent to the device
• The MQTT broker serves as the central source of truth, ensuring that all connected devices, clients, and system microservices have access to relevant and up-to-date data and status information. For example, when changing the sensor’s value or sending a command, everyone knows about it at the same time
• MQTT allows us to implement limitless usage scenarios, and the response speed is measured in tens of milliseconds
• MQTT provides sufficient security measures for secure communication
• Real-time collection of historical data is possible
• The lightweight nature of the protocol allows for easy implementation on various devices, including those with limited resources or weak cloud connectivity
• MQTT supports the management of multiple devices and clients through the publish/subscribe model
• Devices operate autonomously and do not rely on continuous application operation due to the asynchronous nature of the protocol. The client receives the current state during the application’s launch, backed up by historical data
• Real-time event notifications can be delivered to users through various channels such as the IoT platform itself, push notifications, email, SMS, or messengers
• MQTT offers flexibility and scalability with a wide range of available solutions, including SaaS offerings and other paid or free options

Given the above reasons, there are no questions about which IoT messaging protocol is better for us. We consider the MQTT protocol one of the best IoT standards.

Besides that, the MQTT’s popularity played a crucial role in our decision to adopt it. With major smart consumer electronics and DIY solutions supporting this protocol, a wide range of firmware is available for popular devices. It allows us to seamlessly integrate it into our products without disrupting the firmware’s business logic.

If we are to describe our project architecture, the MQTT broker acts as the central hub, with all devices connecting to it and publishing topics following our conventions, ensuring instant updates for clients.

In certain cases, we use a combination of protocols for device communication. For example, we leverage HTTPS across all our projects for OTA updates. Our ACS Propuskator also employs HTTPS, as this protocol ensures secure and reliable delivery of critical notifications and the transmission of larger data volumes like firmware updates. Yet, HTTPS lacks real-time capabilities and is not suitable for receiving sensor and telemetry data.

All in all, we believe that MQTT is suitable for IoT applications in various sectors, from smart home systems and environmental monitoring to industrial automation and the automotive industry.

Leverage MQTT with WebbyLab

Selecting a suitable protocol is critical for your IoT project’s further growth. Each with its distinct features, use cases, and IoT standards MQTT, AMQP, XMPP, DDS, and CoAP are the options you may want to consider.

If you need guidance on the best-fitting solution for your requirements, WebbyLab can consult you on the most commonly used messaging protocol in IoT — MQTT. Feel free to contact us to get practical insights from our team’s extensive background.