Tool Relations

Apache Flink provides a native, high-performance connector for Apache Kafka, enabling seamless integration between the stream processing engine and the distributed messaging platform.

Redis

→

Grafana

Integrates with

Grafana provides native Redis connectivity through the Redis Data Source plugin, enabling visualization of Redis Streams, time-series data, and key metrics.

Eclipse Kapua can forward device telemetry to InfluxDB for time-series storage and analytics. This combination enables long-term data retention and powerful querying capabilities.

Redis

NATS

Competes with

Redis Streams and NATS Streaming/JetStream both provide lightweight message streaming but differ in architecture, performance characteristics, and operational model.

Eclipse Kapua and Node-RED can be integrated to create powerful IoT workflows. Kapua manages devices and ingests data, while Node-RED provides visual workflow orchestration and data processing.

Eclipse Kapua and Eclipse Hono are both Eclipse IoT connectivity platforms. While Kapua focuses on device management, Hono specializes in telemetry and command messaging for IoT.

Eclipse Kapua and Eclipse Kura form a complete edge-to-cloud IoT solution. Kura runs on edge gateways and devices, while Kapua provides the cloud backend for device management.

NATS and InfluxDB form a powerful combination for real-time time-series data collection and storage in IIoT deployments.

NATS

Apache Kafka

Competes with

NATS JetStream and Apache Kafka both provide distributed streaming platforms, but differ significantly in complexity, operational overhead, and architectural philosophy.

NATS

Mosquitto

Competes with

NATS and Mosquitto are both lightweight messaging brokers popular in IoT and IIoT deployments. Mosquitto is the reference MQTT broker implementation, while NATS offers its own native protocol with MQTT gateway support.

Eclipse Kapua and Eclipse Ditto complement each other in IoT deployments. Kapua handles device management and connectivity, while Ditto provides digital twin capabilities for device state management.

Eclipse Kapua uses Mosquitto as its underlying MQTT broker for device communication. While Kapua provides the device management layer, Mosquitto handles the actual MQTT message routing between devices and the cloud backend.

Redis

Apache Kafka

Competes with

Redis Streams and Apache Kafka both provide distributed streaming capabilities but differ significantly in scale, persistence model, and operational complexity.

Node-RED provides native Redis connectivity through the node-red-contrib-redis package, enabling flow-based integration with Redis Streams for industrial IoT pipelines.

Pulsar can stream high-throughput IoT and event data into InfluxDB for time-series storage and analysis.

Apache Pulsar

Apache Kafka

Competes with

Apache Pulsar and Apache Kafka are both distributed event streaming platforms, but Pulsar offers unified messaging, tiered storage, and better multi-tenancy.

Eclipse Kura includes built-in MQTT broker support and can integrate with Mosquitto for message brokering at the edge.

StreamPipes can consume Kafka streams for industrial IoT analytics and processing.

Node-RED can produce and consume Kafka messages for IoT data flows.

Eclipse Kura can feed device data into Eclipse Ditto digital twins, providing the edge-to-cloud bridge for digital twin state management.

Eclipse Kura edge gateways can publish telemetry to Eclipse Hono's MQTT adapter, enabling cloud-scale device connectivity with protocol abstraction.

Apache Kafka

Mosquitto

Competes with

Comparison of enterprise event streaming platform vs lightweight MQTT broker.

Kafka metrics and streaming data can be visualized in Grafana dashboards for real-time monitoring.

Kafka can stream high-throughput IoT sensor data into InfluxDB for time-series storage and analysis.

Eclipse Ditto connects to MQTT brokers like Eclipse Mosquitto to consume device telemetry and send commands. Ditto's Connectivity service supports MQTT 3.1.1 and MQTT 5 protocols.

Eclipse Ditto and Eclipse Hono are designed to work together in IoT architectures. Hono provides device connectivity and protocol abstraction, while Ditto provides the digital twin layer for state management and APIs.

Eclipse Hono

ThingsBoard

Competes with

Eclipse Hono and ThingsBoard both address IoT device connectivity, but they solve different layers of the stack. Hono focuses purely on protocol abstraction and northbound APIs, while ThingsBoard is a full IoT platform with built-in rule engine, dashboards and device management.

Node-RED can consume telemetry and events from Eclipse Hono's northbound AMQP or Kafka APIs, enabling visual flow-based processing of device data.

Eclipse Hono normalizes telemetry from IoT devices and forwards it to downstream consumers. InfluxDB is a common destination for time-series telemetry data ingested through Hono pipelines.

Eclipse Hono includes an MQTT protocol adapter that allows devices to connect using MQTT, similar to how they would connect to Mosquitto. Hono can use an existing MQTT broker as its messaging infrastructure or expose its own MQTT adapter endpoint.

ThingsBoard

United Manufacturing Hub

Competes with

Both are open-source platforms for connecting factory devices and visualizing data, but they target different users. ThingsBoard is a general-purpose IoT platform with multi-tenancy for service providers. United Manufacturing Hub is manufacturing-specific with built-in OEE, Unified Namespace, and Kafka-based data infrastructure for plant operations.

Node-RED can send processed data to ThingsBoard via MQTT or REST API. Some deployments use Node-RED for complex flow logic and protocol translation at the edge, feeding results into ThingsBoard for centralized dashboards and device management.

ThingsBoard's MQTT transport layer can connect to Mosquitto brokers, or ThingsBoard can act as its own MQTT broker (via TBMQ). Devices publishing to a Mosquitto broker can be ingested into ThingsBoard using the IoT Gateway's MQTT connector.

ThingsBoard can push telemetry data to Grafana via PostgreSQL or Cassandra as a shared data source. Some teams run Grafana alongside ThingsBoard for more advanced visualization, though ThingsBoard's built-in dashboards cover most monitoring use cases.

Malcolm includes Suricata as one of its ~15 Docker containers, running it in IDS mode for signature-based threat detection. Suricata is preconfigured with automatic rule updates and its EVE JSON alerts flow directly into Malcolm's OpenSearch cluster.

Grafana handles dashboards and alerting while Node-RED handles data flow orchestration and protocol bridging. Together they form the middle layers of the MING stack, with Node-RED collecting and routing data into databases that Grafana queries for visualization.

Explore integrations, comparisons, and dependencies between manufacturing tools.