Interactive comparison of MQTT, CoAP, LoRaWAN, Zigbee, BLE, Thread, Matter & more.
| Feature | MQTT Application Protocol | CoAP Application Protocol | LoRaWAN LPWAN | Zigbee Short Range | BLE (Bluetooth 5) Short Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Application Protocol | Application Protocol | LPWAN | Short Range | Short Range |
| Frequency | N/A (TCP/IP) | N/A (UDP/IP) | 868/915 MHz (ISM) | 2.4 GHz (ISM) | 2.4 GHz (ISM) |
| Range | Internet-wide | Internet-wide | 2-15 km | 10-100 m | 10-400 m |
| Data Rate | Depends on transport | Depends on transport | 0.3-50 Kbps | 250 Kbps | 2 Mbps |
| Power Consumption | Medium | Low | Very Low | Low | Very Low |
| Topology | Pub/Sub (Broker) | Client/Server (REST) | Star-of-Stars | Mesh / Star / Tree | Star / Mesh (BT Mesh) |
| Security | TLS 1.2/1.3, Auth | DTLS | AES-128 (NwkSKey + AppSKey) | AES-128 | AES-CCM |
| Latency | Low (~10-100ms) | Low (~10-100ms) | High (1-10s) | Low (~15-30ms) | Very Low (~6ms) |
| Standard | OASIS / ISO 20922 | RFC 7252 | LoRa Alliance | IEEE 802.15.4 / Zigbee Alliance | Bluetooth SIG 5.x |
| Best For | Real-time telemetry, smart home, industrial IoT | Constrained devices, sensor networks, RESTful IoT | Agriculture, asset tracking, smart cities, metering | Home automation, lighting, sensor clusters | Wearables, beacons, proximity, health devices |
| IP Support | |||||
| Mesh Support | |||||
| License Free | |||||
| Bidirectional |
Real-time telemetry over internet
→ MQTT
Low latency pub/sub with QoS levels
Constrained devices with REST API
→ CoAP
UDP-based, low overhead, RESTful
Long range + low power (rural)
→ LoRaWAN
15+ km range, years of battery life
Smart home mesh network
→ Zigbee / Thread
Self-healing mesh, low power
Wearables & proximity
→ BLE
Ultra-low power, smartphone support
Unified smart home ecosystem
→ Matter
Cross-platform, Thread + Wi-Fi + BLE
Mobile asset tracking
→ LTE-M
Carrier coverage, handoff support
Static utility metering
→ NB-IoT
Deep indoor penetration, low cost
Enterprise message queuing
→ AMQP
Guaranteed delivery, rich routing