When HiveMQ announced the retirement of HiveMQ Cloud Serverless, it also offered eligible users a free Migration license for the self-managed HiveMQ Enterprise Broker. It is a generous offer, and for some teams it is the right choice. But it changes something fundamental: you move from a service someone else runs to software you run yourself. This article explains the HiveMQ Migration license terms, the work that comes with self-managing a broker, and how it compares with moving to another managed MQTT broker.
For dates and deletion rules, see HiveMQ Cloud Serverless end of life.
What the Migration License Includes
According to HiveMQ's documentation at the time of writing:
| Term | Migration license |
|---|---|
| Product | Self-managed HiveMQ Enterprise Broker |
| Concurrent connections | 100 |
| Message rate | 100 messages per second |
| Duration | 12 months |
| Cost | Free, no credit card |
| After 12 months | Continues as a free Lab license, currently 25 connections and 25 messages per second |
| Eligibility | User accounts that owned a Serverless cluster when the retirement was announced; one claim per user account |
| How to claim | From the HiveMQ Platform, via the offer linked in the retirement email |
Check HiveMQ's official page before you decide, since terms can change. If you need more capacity after the first year, HiveMQ offers paid self-managed plans.
What "Self-Managed" Means Day to Day
The broker software is free under the license; operating it is not. Moving from Serverless to a self-managed broker adds these responsibilities to your team:
- Infrastructure. A virtual machine, container platform or Kubernetes cluster, sized and monitored by you, ideally with redundancy.
- Networking. A public IP or load balancer, DNS, firewall rules for ports 1883, 8883 and WebSocket listeners.
- TLS certificates. Obtaining certificates, renewing them before expiry and reloading listeners. An expired certificate takes every TLS client offline at once.
- Authentication and authorization. Recreating your Serverless credentials and permissions in the broker's security configuration.
- Upgrades and patches. Tracking security advisories for the broker, the Java runtime and the operating system.
- Monitoring and alerting. Metrics, logs, disk usage, connection counts, and someone who is woken when the broker is down.
- Capacity limits. Watching the 100-connection and 100 messages per second limits during year one, and the lower Lab limits afterwards.
None of this is exotic, and teams with a platform or DevOps function do it every day. The question is whether you want to start doing it for an MQTT broker that, until now, you never had to think about. The self-hosted vs managed MQTT broker guide goes deeper into the trade-offs.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Criterion | HiveMQ Migration license (self-managed) | ConnectMQ Serverless | ConnectMQ Managed Cloud (Dedicated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs the broker | You | ConnectMQ | ConnectMQ |
| Servers, OS, patches | You | Included | Included |
| TLS certificate | You obtain and renew | Included (Let's Encrypt, renewed automatically) | Included |
| Time to first message | Hours to days | Minutes | Provisioned for you |
| Connection limit | 100 for 12 months, then 25 (Lab) | 25 free, up to 1,000 on Serverless (Paid) | Sized to your workload |
| Message rate limit | 100 msg/s, then 25 msg/s (Lab) | Per-plan quotas | Sized to your workload |
| Monitoring and web tooling | You assemble | Dashboard, topic explorer, web client, alerts | Same tooling, isolated cluster |
| Data location | Wherever you host it | ConnectMQ cloud | ConnectMQ cloud, or your cloud account with BYOC |
| Cost after year one | Lab limits or a paid license, plus infrastructure and staff time | Plan price | Plan price |
Two things stand out. First, the Migration license is time-limited in a way that matters: if your fleet needs more than 25 connections after year one, you will face another decision in 2028. Second, the true cost of self-managing is mostly staff time, which never shows up on a price list.
When the Migration License Is the Right Choice
- You already operate brokers, databases or Kubernetes and have spare capacity.
- The broker must run on-premises or inside a factory network.
- Your fleet comfortably fits within 100 connections and 100 messages per second, and you have a plan for after year one.
- You want to evaluate HiveMQ Enterprise features on your own infrastructure.
If the broker must live on your own hardware but you prefer a supported product with ConnectMQ's tooling, the ConnectMQ Self Managed Enterprise plan is another option worth comparing.
When a Managed MQTT Broker Is the Better Fit
- You chose Serverless because you did not want to run infrastructure, and that has not changed.
- You need more than 100 connections now or more than 25 after year one.
- Nobody on the team wants to be on call for certificate renewals and broker restarts.
- You want the migration to be a configuration change, not a new infrastructure project.
In that case the closest replacement for HiveMQ Cloud Serverless is another managed service. With ConnectMQ, Serverless Free and Pay As You Go users typically map to the ConnectMQ Cloud Serverless MQTT Broker, while production fleets that want isolation map to the ConnectMQ Managed Cloud MQTT Broker.
A Simple Decision Test
Answer three questions:
- Who will renew the TLS certificate in 90 days? If there is no obvious name, choose managed.
- How many connections will you have in 18 months? If the answer is above 25, the Lab license will not cover you after year one.
- Is running a broker part of your product or a distraction from it? Most teams answer "distraction".
Try the Managed Path in Minutes
You can compare both paths empirically. Create a free broker at app.connectmq.com, connect one of your real clients, and see how long it takes to get to the first message. Then follow our HiveMQ Serverless migration guide for the full move.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the HiveMQ Migration license really free?
Yes. According to HiveMQ, it is free for 12 months with no credit card. You still pay for the infrastructure you run it on and the time to operate it.
What happens to the Migration license after 12 months?
HiveMQ states that it continues as a free Lab license with lower limits, currently 25 concurrent connections and 25 messages per second. More capacity requires a paid plan.
Can I keep my HiveMQ Cloud URL with the Migration license?
No. A self-managed broker runs on your own hostname, so every client still needs new connection settings, exactly as with a move to another managed broker.
Is a managed MQTT broker more expensive than a free license?
Not necessarily. Once you include servers, monitoring and engineering time, a managed plan is often cheaper in total. Compare total cost for your workload rather than license price alone; our MQTT broker pricing guide shows how.
