RabbitMQ is an open-source message broker originally implementing the AMQP protocol with additional messaging protocols supported via a plug-in architecture. This tag should be used with questions involving the RabbitMQ server message broker product or questions concerning the source code and implementation of the RabbitMQ product. A specific protocol tag such as amqp or mqtt may also be appropriate as well as the OS and programming language being used.
RabbitMQ is an open-source message broker software that implements the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) with other message protocols (HTTP, STOMP, and MQTT) supported via its plug-in architecture. AMQP itself is one of several open standard for business messaging. Written in Erlang, the RabbitMQ server is based on a proven platform and offers a reliable, highly available, scalable and portable messaging system with predictable and consistent throughput and latency. There are several operating systems supported, including Linux and Windows.
There is also a client library implementing the AMQP protocol, RabbitMQ-C, librabbitmq on Linux, which provides C language bindings. This library is a basis for client libraries for a number of different programming languages.
RabbitMQ is 100% open-source and 100% based on open standard protocols, freeing users from dependency on proprietary vendor-supplied libraries. It is designed from the ground up to interoperate with other message systems. It is a leading implementation of AMQP.
The official URL of RabbitMQ is https://www.rabbitmq.com. Simple tutorials can be found on https://github.com/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-tutorials. Its client implementation can be done in various languages like Python, Java, Ruby, PHP, C#, JavaScript, GO, Elixr.
The principal idea of RabbitMQ is to accept and forward messages analogous to a post office: when you send mail to the post box, you're pretty sure the post office will eventually deliver the mail to your recipient. Using this metaphor, RabbitMQ is a post box, a post office and a postman. The major difference between RabbitMQ and the post office is the fact that it doesn't deal with paper, instead it accepts, stores and forwards binary blobs of data ‒ messages.
Through adapters, it supports MQTT and STOMP, both natively and over HTTP/WebSockets. SMTP is also available thanks to a community plugin.
Support for the software is offered through both a thriving community of active contributors and a range of commercial support services available through Pivotal (https://pivotal.io/oss).
