Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

MQTT

610
569
+ 1
7
REST

20
191
+ 1
0
Add tool

MQTT vs REST: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between MQTT and REST protocols. MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) and REST (Representational State Transfer) are both widely used in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) and play different roles in enabling communication between devices and systems.

  1. Protocol design: MQTT is a publish-subscribe messaging protocol, while REST is an architectural style. MQTT follows a lightweight design and is optimized for constrained devices and high-latency networks. On the other hand, REST uses standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) for communication and can be implemented over any network protocol.

  2. Communication pattern: MQTT uses a publish-subscribe communication pattern, where clients (publishers) send messages to topics and other clients (subscribers) receive those messages by subscribing to those topics. In contrast, REST follows a client-server communication pattern, where clients send requests to servers and get responses back.

  3. Statelessness: REST is stateless, meaning that each request from the client to the server should contain all the necessary information for the server to understand and process the request. On the other hand, MQTT supports session management and can maintain stateful connections between clients and brokers.

  4. Message size and overhead: MQTT is designed to be lightweight and efficient, making it ideal for low-bandwidth or unreliable networks. It has a small message overhead and allows for smaller payload sizes. In contrast, REST messages typically have more overhead due to the use of HTTP headers and require larger message sizes.

  5. Quality of Service (QoS) levels: MQTT provides different levels of Quality of Service to ensure message delivery reliability, including QoS 0 (at most once), QoS 1 (at least once), and QoS 2 (exactly once). REST does not provide built-in QoS mechanisms and relies on the underlying HTTP protocol for reliability.

  6. Scalability and resource usage: MQTT is designed to handle a large number of connected clients efficiently, making it a good choice for scalable IoT deployments. REST may require more server resources to handle a high number of concurrent connections and requests.

In summary, MQTT is a lightweight publish-subscribe messaging protocol optimized for constrained devices and networks, while REST is an architectural style based on client-server communication over standard HTTP methods. MQTT supports stateful connections, has lower message overhead, provides QoS levels, and is more scalable, while REST is stateless, has higher message overhead, and relies on the underlying HTTP protocol for reliability.

Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of MQTT
Pros of REST
  • 3
    Varying levels of Quality of Service to fit a range of
  • 2
    Lightweight with a relatively small data footprint
  • 2
    Very easy to configure and use with open source tools
  • 4
    Popularity

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of MQTT
Cons of REST
  • 1
    Easy to configure in an unsecure manner
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is MQTT?

    It was designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium.

    What is REST?

    An architectural style for developing web services. A distributed system framework that uses Web protocols and technologies.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use MQTT?
    What companies use REST?
    See which teams inside your own company are using MQTT or REST.
    Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with MQTT?
    What tools integrate with REST?
      No integrations found

      Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

      What are some alternatives to MQTT and REST?
      RabbitMQ
      RabbitMQ gives your applications a common platform to send and receive messages, and your messages a safe place to live until received.
      XMPP
      It is a set of open technologies for instant messaging, presence, multi-party chat, voice and video calls, collaboration, lightweight middleware, content syndication, and generalized routing of XML data.
      Google Cloud Messaging
      Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a free service that enables developers to send messages between servers and client apps. This includes downstream messages from servers to client apps, and upstream messages from client apps to servers.
      Kafka
      Kafka is a distributed, partitioned, replicated commit log service. It provides the functionality of a messaging system, but with a unique design.
      ZeroMQ
      The 0MQ lightweight messaging kernel is a library which extends the standard socket interfaces with features traditionally provided by specialised messaging middleware products. 0MQ sockets provide an abstraction of asynchronous message queues, multiple messaging patterns, message filtering (subscriptions), seamless access to multiple transport protocols and more.
      See all alternatives