RabbitMQ vs. Kafka vs. ActiveMQ: A Battle of Messaging Brokers

RabbitMQ, Kafka, and ActiveMQ are the three message brokers you will hear about most often. All three move messages between producers and consumers, but they are built on very different ideas. Here is each one in a single sentence:

• RabbitMQ: a smart broker that routes each message through exchanges into queues, and deletes the message once a consumer acknowledges it.
• Kafka: a distributed append-only log that keeps messages after delivery, so consumers pull at their own pace and can replay history.