Summary

RobustMQ provides a unified, Rust-native communication infrastructure designed for the AI era. It addresses the complexity of managing multiple messaging protocols by offering a single binary, broker, and storage layer. This simplifies deployment from edge devices to cloud clusters, enabling seamless data flow and asynchronous communication for AI agents, IoT, streaming analytics, and enterprise applications.

How It Works

RobustMQ is built on a modular architecture comprising a Meta Service (Raft consensus), a Broker (protocol parsing/routing), and a pluggable Storage Engine. Its core innovation is a unified storage layer where data is written once and accessible via multiple native protocols: MQTT, Kafka, NATS, AMQP, and the novel mq9 protocol. The mq9 layer specifically facilitates asynchronous AI agent communication through persistent, prioritized mailboxes. Being Rust-native ensures a stable, predictable memory footprint without garbage collection pauses, ideal for resource-constrained environments and high-performance scenarios.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Install: Execute curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robustmq/robustmq/main/scripts/install.sh | bash then broker-server start.
• Prerequisites: Zero external dependencies required for the single binary deployment.
• Demo: Online MQTT Server (117.72.92.117:1883, admin/robustmq) and Web Dashboard (http://demo.robustmq.com:8080).
• Documentation: Comprehensive guides and API references are available within the repository.

Highlighted Details

• Unified Multi-Protocol: Native support for MQTT, Kafka, NATS, AMQP, and mq9 on a shared storage engine.
• AI Agent Mailboxes (mq9): Persistent, store-first delivery with critical/urgent/normal priorities, TTL cleanup, and public discovery.
• Edge-to-Cloud Deployment: Single binary, zero dependencies, offline buffering, and auto-sync capabilities.
• Flexible Storage: Supports Memory, RocksDB, File backends, with optional S3 cold data tiering.
• Scalable Subscriptions: Enables elastic scaling of consumers beyond traditional partition limits.

Maintenance & Community

• Community: Active engagement via Discord, GitHub Issues, and GitHub Discussions. A dedicated Chinese community channel is also available.
• Roadmap: Clear, phased development plan targeting MQTT stability, followed by NATS+mq9, Kafka, and AMQP protocol integration.

Licensing & Compatibility

• License: Apache License 2.0.
• Compatibility: Permissive license suitable for commercial use and integration into closed-source projects.

Limitations & Caveats

RobustMQ is currently in early development and not production-ready. While the MQTT core is stable, Kafka, NATS, and AMQP protocols are still under active development, with production readiness targeted for version 0.4.0.