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Self-host HiveMQ Community Edition

2026.5

Open-source Java MQTT 3.x/5 broker for IoT messaging

ReleaseOpen SourceApache-2.0
Updatedlast week
LanguageJava
Setup difficultyEasy
Stars
1 213
CPU
4 or more CPUs
RAM
At least 4GB of RAM
Storage
10GB or more free disk space
Port
1883 (Default MQTT TCP listener, bound to all interfaces)
Docker
hivemq/hivemq-ce
Install with Docker

What is HiveMQ Community Edition?

HiveMQ Community Edition (CE) is a Java-based MQTT broker released under the Apache 2.0 license that covers the full MQTT 3.x and 5.0 specification and serves as the open-source core of the commercial HiveMQ platform. Clients connect over plain TCP, TLS, WebSocket or Secure WebSocket, and behaviour such as retained messages, sessions, queues, subscriptions and persistence mode is tuned in a single XML file (conf/config.xml) that the broker reads at startup, with ${ENVVAR} placeholders filled from the environment. Custom authentication, authorization, client initializers and packet interceptors can be written against the Java Extension SDK, and the broker can also be started inside a Java application through its embedded API. Run it by unzipping the official binary package and calling bin/run.sh, with the hivemq/hivemq-ce Docker image, or by building your own package and image from source. Production deployments are supported on Linux only and need OpenJDK 11 or newer, roughly 4 GB RAM, 4 CPUs and 10 GB of free disk.

Should you self-host HiveMQ Community Edition?

HiveMQ Community Edition scores 55/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #10 of 12 in Message Broker. It has 1 213 GitHub stars.

It shipped 2 stable releases in the past year. The latest, 2026.5, came out on 27 May 2026. New versions land roughly every 6 months.

Setup is easy: most people get it running in one sitting. An official Docker image is available. It is Apache-2.0-licensed and written mostly in Java.

Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is Apache Kafka (83/100, 34 152 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See HiveMQ Community Edition vs Apache Kafka side by side.

Features

  • Certificate autoreload
  • Embedded mode
  • JMX monitoring
  • MQTT 3.1 / 3.1.1 / 5.0 support
  • Multiple listeners
  • Plugin/extension SDK
  • Retained message and session persistence
  • Shared Subscriptions
  • TLS Encryption
  • WebSocket transport
  • XML file configuration

HiveMQ Community Edition README

How to install HiveMQ Community Edition

Install HiveMQ Community Edition with Docker

Environment variables
HIVEMQ_LOG_LEVEL

[source,bash]

docker run --name hivemq-ce -d -p 1883:1883 hivemq/hivemq-ce

How to configure HiveMQ Community Edition

  • HIVEMQ_CONFIG_FOLDERConfiguration files folder

    Configuration files folder

    values: path

  • HIVEMQ_DATA_FOLDERHiveMQ data folder

    HiveMQ data folder

    values: path

  • HIVEMQ_EXTENSION_FOLDERExtension binaries folder

    Extension binaries folder

    values: path

  • HIVEMQ_HOMEBase folder (bin needs to be a sub folder of this folder)

    Base folder (bin needs to be a sub folder of this folder)

    values: path

  • HIVEMQ_LOG_FOLDERLog files folder

    Log files folder

    values: path

  • HIVEMQ_LOG_LEVELSet the broker log level when running the container

    Set the broker log level when running the container

    values: e.g. INFO

  • HIVEMQ_PORTExample environment variable injected into config.xml via ${HIVEMQ_PORT} placeholder for the TCP listener port

    Example environment variable injected into config.xml via ${HIVEMQ_PORT} placeholder for the TCP listener port

    values: port number

HiveMQ Community Edition releases & version history

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