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How to Benchmark any MQTT Broker Performance Using mqtt-cli

How to Benchmark any MQTT Broker Performance Using mqtt-cli

If you're sending messages to many users or topics and experiencing latency issues, it's important to understand how your broker performs at different Quality of Service (QoS) levels. The mqtt test command from the MQTT CLI tool helps you benchmark message throughput and feature support across MQTT versions 3 and 5.

This guide walks you through running an end-to-end broker test, including QoS benchmarks, using mqtt-cli.

Instructions

✅ Prerequisites

  • Installed MQTT CLI (version 4.x+ recommended)

  • Access to your MQTT broker (hostname, port, credentials if required)

🚀 Command to Run

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host <your-mqtt-broker-host> --port <your-mqtt-broker-port> --user <your-user> --password <your-password> [--secure]

What this does:

  • Runs all available MQTT feature tests (both MQTT 3 and 5)

  • Sends 1,000 publishes for each QoS level (0, 1, 2)

  • Reports latency and success rate for each test

📊 Sample Output Breakdown

QoS 0: Received 1000/1000 publishes in 79.90ms QoS 1: Received 1000/1000 publishes in 131.36ms QoS 2: Received 1000/1000 publishes in 179.37ms

What this tells you:

  • QoS 0 is fastest, ideal for high-throughput use cases where message loss is tolerable

  • QoS 1 and 2 provide more reliability at the cost of latency

  • This helps you tune your application to the right balance of performance and reliability

🛠️ Additional Options

Option

Description

Option

Description

--secure

Use TLS encryption

--mqttVersion

Specify 5 or 3.1.1 explicitly

--timeOut=<ms>

Customize timeout for broker response

🧠 Use Case

For example, if you want to:

  • Evaluate publishing speed

  • Compare QoS performance

  • Check MQTT 5 compatibility

… the mqtt test command gives you actionable performance data in under 1 second.

HiveMQ Public Broker

HiveMQ Public Broker without TLS:

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host broker.hivemq.com --port 1883

HiveMQ Public Broker WebSocket without TLS:

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host broker.hivemq.com --port 8000 -ws

HiveMQ Public Broker with TLS:

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host broker.hivemq.com --port 8883 --secure

HiveMQ Public Broker WebSocket with TLS:

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host broker.hivemq.com --port 8884 -ws --secure

HiveMQ Cloud Serverless Broker

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host 2ed61f54b0c04f2db1eb8d16be859880.s1.eu.hivemq.cloud --port 8883 --secure --user Superuser1 --password Superpassword1

HiveMQ Cloud Starter Broker

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host startertest-81c35deb.a03.euc1.aws.hivemq.cloud --port 8883 --secure --user Superuser1 --password Superpassword1

Other brokers

mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host test.mosquitto.org --port 1883
mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host test.mosquitto.org --port 1884 --user rw --password readwrite
mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host test.mosquitto.org --port 8883 --cafile mosquitto.org.crt
mqtt test --all --qosTries 1000 --host test.mosquitto.org --port 8883 --cafile mosquitto.org.crt

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