Open-source message queues and event streaming platforms in 2026
30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. Apache Kafka leads with 34k stars, ahead of NSQ. 29 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: Apache-2.0 (16), MIT (8) and See repository (2).
Open-source message queues and event streaming platforms
Complete systems you can adopt 1
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1
Apache InLong apache
Apache InLong - a one-stop, full-scenario integration framework for massive data
Complete system Usable You run a large data platform and want one managed system for ingestion and sync into Kafka, Pulsar, Hive or ClickHouse.
★ 1.5k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed 2 months ago
Frameworks and platforms to build on 3
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1
Apache EventMesh apache
EventMesh is a new generation serverless event middleware for building distributed event-driven applications.
Framework or platform Usable You want an event layer that hides which message broker sits underneath, particularly in an Apache RocketMQ shop.
★ 1.8k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed 15 days ago -
2
Inngest SDK for TypeScript inngest
The developer platform for easily building reliable workflows with zero infrastructure for TypeScript & JavaScript
Framework or platform Production-ready You run serverless or Node.js apps and want background jobs and multi-step workflows without operating your own queue.
★ 1k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
iWF indeedeng
iWF is a Workflow-As-Code microservice orchestration platform offering an orchestration coding framework and service for building resilient, fault-tolerant, scalable long-running processes
Framework or platform Usable You already run Temporal or Cadence and want a simpler programming model for long-running workflows than writing raw Temporal workflows.
★ 663 MIT Go Active, pushed 2 months ago
Building blocks for your own system 24
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1
Apache Kafka apache
Apache Kafka - A distributed event streaming platform
Building block Production-ready Several systems need to publish and replay large streams of events reliably, and you have the operations capacity to run a cluster or pay for a managed one.
★ 34k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed today -
2
NSQ nsqio
A realtime distributed messaging platform
Building block Production-ready You need simple, horizontally scaled pub/sub between Go services and can accept at-least-once delivery without ordering guarantees.
★ 26k MIT Go Active, pushed 3 months ago -
3
NATS nats-io
High-Performance server for NATS.io, the cloud and edge native messaging system.
Building block Production-ready You need lightweight messaging between services or devices and want streaming persistence without running Kafka.
★ 21k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today -
4
Apache Pulsar apache
Apache Pulsar - distributed pub-sub messaging system
Building block Production-ready You need multi-tenant messaging at scale with both queue and stream semantics and can run a JVM cluster.
★ 15k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed today -
5
RabbitMQ Server rabbitmq
Open source RabbitMQ: core server and tier 1 (built-in) plugins
Building block Production-ready Your services need reliable asynchronous messaging with flexible routing.
★ 14k See repository JavaScript Active, pushed today -
6
Debezium debezium
Change data capture for a variety of databases. Please log issues at https://github.com/debezium/dbz/issues.
Building block Production-ready You need to stream every database change into Kafka or another system for caches, search indexes or analytics without changing application code.
★ 13k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed today -
7
Redpanda redpanda-data
Redpanda is a streaming data platform for developers. Kafka API compatible. 10x faster. No ZooKeeper. No JVM!
Building block Production-ready You want Kafka-compatible streaming with simpler operations and lower latency, and existing Kafka clients must keep working.
★ 13k See repository C++ Active, pushed 28 days ago -
8
RisingWave risingwavelabs
Event streaming platform for agentic AI. Continuously ingest, transform, and serve event streams in real time, at scale.
Building block Usable You want real-time aggregations over event streams written in SQL instead of building Flink jobs.
★ 9.4k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today -
9
PGMQ pgmq
A lightweight message queue. Like AWS SQS and RSMQ but on Postgres.
Building block Usable You already run Postgres and want a durable job or message queue without adding Redis or a separate broker.
★ 5.4k PostgreSQL PLpgSQL Active, pushed 17 days ago -
10
VerneMQ vernemq
A distributed MQTT message broker based on Erlang/OTP. Built for high quality & Industrial use cases. The VerneMQ mission is active & the project maintained. Thank you for your support!
Building block Production-ready You need a self-hosted, clustered MQTT broker for IoT devices and are comfortable operating Erlang software.
★ 3.6k Apache-2.0 Erlang Active, pushed yesterday -
11
Svix svix
The open source and enterprise-ready webhooks service 🦀
Building block Production-ready Your product must send webhooks to customers and you do not want to build retries, signatures and delivery logs yourself.
★ 3.5k MIT Rust Active, pushed today -
12
BlazingMQ bloomberg
A modern high-performance open source message queuing system
Building block Usable You need a high-throughput, durable message broker with queue semantics and your team is comfortable with C++ infrastructure.
★ 3.2k Apache-2.0 C++ Active, pushed today -
13
Kombu celery
Messaging library for Python.
Building block Production-ready You write Python code that sends or consumes queue messages directly and want to switch brokers without rewriting it.
★ 3.1k BSD-3-Clause Python Active, pushed today -
14
Liftbridge liftbridge-io
Kafka-style message streaming in Go. Built on NATS. Single binary, no JVM, no ZooKeeper.
Building block Experimental You already run NATS and want log-style streams, though NATS JetStream now does this natively.
★ 2.8k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed 23 days ago -
15
Enqueue php-enqueue
Message Queue, Job Queue, Broadcasting, WebSockets packages for PHP, Symfony, Laravel, Magento. DEVELOPMENT REPOSITORY - provided by Forma-Pro
Building block Usable You run a PHP application and want one messaging API that works across several brokers.
★ 2.2k MIT PHP Active, pushed 2 months ago -
16
RobustMQ robustmq
Communication infrastructure for the AI era — one binary, one broker, one storage layer, any protocol
Building block Experimental You want to experiment with one broker that serves several messaging protocols at once.
★ 1.9k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed 4 days ago -
17
apalis apalis-dev
Type-safe, extensible, and high-performance background processing library for Rust
Building block Usable You are building a Rust service and need typed background jobs with retries and a choice of storage backend.
★ 1.5k MIT Rust Active, pushed yesterday -
18
message-io lemunozm
Fast and easy-to-use event-driven network library.
Building block Experimental You are writing a Rust network app such as a game server or chat and want simple message passing without building on Tokio directly.
★ 1.2k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed 2 months ago -
19
Carmine taoensso
Redis client + message queue for Clojure
Building block Production-ready You write Clojure and need to talk to Redis, or want a small Redis-backed job queue without another dependency.
★ 1.2k EPL-1.0 Clojure Active, pushed 6 days ago -
20
RMQTT rmqtt
MQTT Server/MQTT Broker - Scalable Distributed MQTT Message Broker for IoT in the 5G Era
Building block Usable You need a self-hosted MQTT broker and prefer a single Rust binary to Erlang-based brokers such as EMQX or VerneMQ.
★ 1.1k MIT Rust Active, pushed yesterday -
21
LavinMQ cloudamqp
Ultra quick message queue and streaming server
Building block Usable You use AMQP and want a broker with lower memory use than RabbitMQ, either self-hosted or through CloudAMQP.
★ 1k Apache-2.0 Crystal Active, pushed today -
22
SAQ tobymao
Simple Async Queues
Building block Usable Your Python app is async and you want a lighter, faster job queue than Celery.
★ 895 MIT Python Active, pushed 7 days ago -
23
Apache Pulsar Go Client apache
Apache Pulsar Go Client Library
Building block Production-ready You write Go services that publish to or consume from Pulsar.
★ 744 Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed 2 days ago -
24
RSMQ smrchy
Redis Simple Message Queue
Building block Usable You have Node.js and Redis and need a minimal queue where each message goes to exactly one worker.
★ 1.8k MIT JavaScript Slowing, pushed 3 months ago
Developer tools 2
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1
Kafdrop obsidiandynamics
Kafka Web UI
Developer tool Production-ready You want a simple, read-mostly view into a Kafka cluster that runs as one Docker container.
★ 6.2k Apache-2.0 Java Active, pushed yesterday -
2
Kafbat UI kafbat
Open-Source Web UI for managing Apache Kafka clusters
Developer tool Production-ready Your team runs Kafka and wants a free management UI with role-based access across several clusters.
★ 2.8k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
Open-source licenses
- Permissive: 26. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
- Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.
- Strong copyleft: 1. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
Languages
Java 6, Rust 6, Go 5, JavaScript 2, C++ 2, Python 2, TypeScript 2, PLpgSQL 1, Erlang 1, PHP 1, Clojure 1 and Crystal 1.
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