RobustMQ 0.3.0 RELEASE
Release Date: February 2025
Version: 0.3.0
GitHub: https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq
Notice: 0.3.0 is still in early stage and is not recommended for production use. We plan to reach production-ready status in version 0.4.0 (expected May 2025). Early testing and feedback are welcome.
Highlights
RobustMQ 0.3.0 is a significant milestone — not just a feature iteration, but a fundamental re-alignment of the project's positioning and architecture.
Starting from 0.3.0, RobustMQ's positioning is clear: Next-generation unified communication infrastructure for AI, IoT, and Big Data. Through dual Kafka/MQTT protocol compatibility, million-scale Topics, direct object storage (S3/MinIO) integration, multi-mode storage engine, and intelligent data caching, RobustMQ provides high-performance, low-cost, stable communication infrastructure for AI Agent communication, Agent communication, IoT devices, and big data processing.
Architecture Redesign
0.3.0 introduces a redesigned architecture with three clearly bounded components.
Meta Service
Manages cluster metadata and coordination. All node states, Topic configurations, and client session information are stored here, with consistency and high availability guaranteed by a custom-built Multi Raft mechanism.
Broker
Handles protocol processing and request routing. The Broker is stateless — it only handles client connections, protocol parsing, and message routing without holding any persistent data. This compute-storage separation design allows Broker nodes to scale horizontally at any time without data migration.
Storage Engine
Handles data persistence with three pluggable storage backends:
| Engine | Characteristics | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Pure in-memory, microsecond latency | Low-latency, ephemeral data |
| RocksDB | Unified KV storage | Million-scale Topics, general persistence |
| File Segment | Sequential write, high throughput | Kafka scenarios, big data streams |
The interface between upper-layer protocols and storage engines is plugin-based, allowing future backends to be added without changing the core architecture.
Multi Raft
Meta Service uses a custom Multi Raft implementation that supports multiple independent Raft Groups. Different types of metadata can be managed by different Raft Groups, avoiding the performance bottleneck of a single Raft. This is a critical infrastructure investment for large-scale deployments.
MQTT Broker Core Features
The MQTT Broker in 0.3.0 reaches an important milestone in functional completeness, covering the main scenarios of a production-grade MQTT Broker:
- Full protocol support: MQTT 3.1 / 3.1.1 / 5.0, including connect/disconnect, Keep-alive, Will messages, Retained messages, QoS 0/1/2
- Session management: Session persistence and recovery
- Subscription modes: Shared subscriptions, topic rewriting and filtering
- Security: Username/password authentication, ACL authorization
- Message features: Offline message storage, delayed messages
- Rule engine: Basic rule engine functionality
Code Quality: Refactoring & Bug Fixes
0.3.0 represents a large amount of engineering work that is not directly visible as new features:
Architecture Refactoring
- Connection management layer refactored from a single implementation to an extensible abstraction
- Storage engine decoupled from the core and split into a plugin interface
- gRPC client layer now includes retry logic and timeout control
- Handler layer now has per-thread independent monitoring metrics
Stability Fixes
- Fixed multiple race conditions under high concurrency
- Fixed edge-case bugs in session recovery logic
- Fixed memory growth issues under large numbers of connections
Performance Optimization
- Optimized the critical path for connection establishment, reducing unnecessary gRPC calls
- Handler timeout mechanism prevents task stalls from collapsing throughput
Ecosystem Tools
Grafana + Prometheus
Built-in comprehensive monitoring metrics covering connections, message throughput, Handler latency, gRPC call duration, storage engine I/O, and queue backlog. An out-of-the-box Grafana Dashboard is provided — just import it after deployment to get full observability immediately.
Command CLI (robust-ctl)
Enhanced command-line management tool supporting cluster status queries, Topic management, client session inspection, and user permission configuration.
HTTP API
Full REST API covering cluster management, Topic operations, user management, and rule engine configuration. Designed for integration with existing operations platforms and automation scripts.
Bench CLI (robust-bench)
Built-in benchmarking tool supporting MQTT connection, publish, and subscribe load tests with configurable concurrency, message rate, payload size, and duration. Quickly validate cluster performance and stability after deployment.
RobustMQ Dashboard
Web-based management console providing cluster overview, node status, Topic list, client connections, and rule engine configuration — all operable from the UI.
Website & Documentation
Restructured official website and documentation system, covering quick start, architecture overview, configuration reference, API manual, and benchmarking guide. Documentation is maintained in sync with the codebase.
Installation & Usage
One-line Install
# Install latest version (defaults to ~/robustmq-v0.3.0 with ~/robustmq symlink)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robustmq/robustmq/main/scripts/install.sh | bashStart Services
# Start Placement Center (Meta Service)
robust-server placement-center start
# Start MQTT Broker
robust-server mqtt-server startQuick Verification
# Install MQTTX CLI (https://mqttx.app/docs/cli)
# Subscribe
mqttx sub -h localhost -p 1883 -t "test/topic"
# Publish (in another terminal)
mqttx pub -h localhost -p 1883 -t "test/topic" -m "Hello RobustMQ!"Web console: visit http://localhost:3000 (Dashboard)
Full documentation: Quick Start Guide
Docker
docker pull ghcr.io/robustmq/robustmq:v0.3.0
docker pull ghcr.io/robustmq/robustmq:latestBuild from Source
git clone https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq.git
cd robustmq
git checkout v0.3.0
cargo build --releaseRoadmap
| Direction | Content |
|---|---|
| Performance & Stability | MQTT connection path optimization, Raft write throughput, storage engine deep tuning |
| MQTT completeness | Full rule engine, Webhook integration, complete operations API |
| AI Agent Communication | Topic direct object storage (S3/MinIO), three-tier intelligent cache, predictive prefetch |
| Kafka Protocol | Full Kafka protocol implementation, compatible with Flink, Spark, Kafka Connect |
See 2026 RoadMap for details.
Support & Feedback
- GitHub: https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq
- Issues: https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq/issues
- Discussions: https://github.com/robustmq/robustmq/discussions
- Docs: https://robustmq.com
RobustMQ Team
February 2025