undefined | Better HN

0 pointsCharlieDigital2y ago0 comments

Is it? ZeroMQ runs in-process as a library. NATS looks like it requires a server.

0 comments

4 comments · 3 top-level

dist-epoch2y ago· 1 in thread

Fair.

Having used both (from Python) I found NATS much better. ZeroMQ in particular caused a lot of problems around the HWM (High Water Mark) limit for me or around process starting order (who creates what channel). Having a separate server helps with the last problem.

CharlieDigitalOP2y ago

ZMQ for me fills a very specific use case of needing high-throughput, _in-process_ distributed messaging.

I think once the _in-process_ constraint is lifted -- you can install or rely on an external messaging server -- then the field becomes much wider in terms of solutions to pick from.

BTW, the way we solved for a similar HWM issue is that we decoupled the ingestion of events from the distribution of said events (with ZMQ). So one process was ingesting events and would send it to a coordinator process that would then send events to processing nodes. The coordinator would reply with it's current queue size and the ingest process would do a back-off once it reached a threshold. This allowed us to stop/start any node in the cluster in any order.

traceroute662y ago

No. It doesn't.

Sure, to get the most out of NATS you should run it as a server (which frankly isn't difficult as its a single Go binary).

But you can embed it if you so wish. Indeed if you look at the NATS source code[1], that is exactly how NATS do their testing. They use an embedded NATS server in their test routines.

[1]https://github.com/nats-io/nats-server/tree/main/test

cmrdporcupine2y ago

Exactly, zmq is far more flexible in deployment options because of this.

We (at work) use ZMQ + our own special sauces to run vehicle automation messaging stuff. Running some enterprise-ish broker in that environment just isn't on the menu.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse