Eclipse Hono integrates with Mosquitto

Overview

Eclipse Hono's MQTT protocol adapter enables MQTT-speaking devices to connect directly to Hono. In practice, this means Hono can either front-end or integrate with existing MQTT broker infrastructure like Eclipse Mosquitto.

Integration Architecture

Devices publish telemetry to Hono's MQTT adapter (e.g. mqtt-adapter.hono.svc) on standard topics. Hono authenticates the device, normalizes the message, and forwards it to the back-end messaging infrastructure (AMQP 1.0 or Kafka).

When to Use Both

• You already have Mosquitto deployed at the edge and want to bridge into a cloud back end
• You need Hono's multi-tenant device registry and security model but want to keep MQTT as the edge protocol
• You are building a Unified Namespace where MQTT is the edge lingua franca and Hono is the northbound abstraction layer

Tradeoffs

Mosquitto alone is simpler for single-tenant, small-scale deployments. Hono adds operational complexity but brings protocol abstraction, horizontal scaling and enterprise security features.