Networking & APIs
Distributed Messaging: Apache Kafka vs RabbitMQ vs NATS
Throughput and latency benchmarking of distributed messaging systems: Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, and NATS JetStream.
Test Environment
CPUGCP n2-standard-16 (3 Nodes)
RAM64GB
OSDebian 12
ToolOpenMessaging Benchmark
Metrics Comparison
Max Throughput
Unit: Msg/secKafka
1,200,000★
NATS
950,000
RabbitMQ
85,000
Detailed Analysis
NATS offers ultra-low latency, Kafka provides unmatched durable throughput, and RabbitMQ excels in complex routing.
Kafka uses an append-only commit log and zero-copy OS optimizations. RabbitMQ maintains complex queues and state in Erlang.
Disk I/O
Persisting messages to disk
Bottleneck: RabbitMQ write operations are synchronous by default.
Architectural Recommendations
- Kafka for big data pipelines
- NATS for microservices
- RabbitMQ for legacy enterprise routing
Frequently Asked Questions
Does NATS persist messages?
Yes, NATS JetStream adds persistence and at-least-once delivery semantics.