WSO2 MB vs Apache Kafka comparison

When it comes to message broker solutions, those can be categorized into 2 main types

• Standards based traditional message brokers (e.g. Apache ActiveMQ, RabbitMQ, WSO2 MB, Apache Qpid)

• Proprietary modern message brokers (e.g. Apache Kafka, Kestrel)

Based on your requirement, you need to select the best category and then go for a specific vendor based on your needs, IT capacity and financial capabilities. In this post, I’m comparing 2 popular message brokers (WSO2 MB and Apache Kafka) from 2 categories. Even though it discusses about 2 specific brokers, you can consider this when comparing these 2 categories of message brokers.

Feature	WSO2 MB	Apache Kafka
Messaging semantics	Rich messaging semantics with features such as - Transactions - Persistent/In-memory	Relaxed and proprietary
Supported protocols	JMS 1.0/1.1, AMQP, STOMP, MQTT	Propreitary protocol written over TCP
Standard messaging	supports well known standards based messaging - pub/sub - request/reply - point to point	Supports only pub/sub with proprietary protocol
Clustering	In built clustering without any third party components	Requires Zoo Keeper to make a cluster
Performance	Considerably low due to the standards based messaging semantics and different protocol support	Higher performance due to simpler messaging semantic and proprietary protocol
Deployment complexity	Simpler deployment with 2 node cluster which is capable of handling a considerable load	Complex deployment with multiple components deployed in a cluster. Not suitable for moderate messaging requirements
Message flow control	Supported at the MB itself through - dead letter channels - QoS - delivery guarantees	Needs to be done at the client side
Management console	Available with full management capabilities of Queues/Topics and other server runtime monitoring	No native management console
Client support	Java, .Net, C++ and other AMQP clients	Clients for Java, C++, Python, Go and others
Compatibility	compatible with existing messaging systems within the enterprise due to standards based communication	Need special connectors to be written for existing systems to connect with Kafka
Security	Security can be configured through - SSL at transport layer - User based access control for queues - Role based access control for topics	no SSL support

Based on the above comparison, if you are looking for a high performance, large scale message storage platform which works in isolation without much connectivity to existing systems, you can select Apache Kafka. But your requirements is to build a messaging system which interconnects with existing systems seamlessly and with a moderate performance and easily manageable deployment with rich messaging features, you can select WSO2 MB.

Cheers !!!