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Comparison of message queues for Ruby

Igal Koshevoy, updated 2009-06-01

Using message queues effectively can significantly improve the efficiency and responsiveness of applications. Ruby programmers are lucky to have many messaging options to choose from, but are cursed with having to pick between them. This comparison table and source code samples attempt to provide basic information to help Ruby programmers better understand these alternatives:

Name	Delayed::Job	Kestrel	Starling	Sparrow	beanstalkd	memcacheq	RabbitMQ	ActiveMQ
Pure Ruby	Y	N (Java)	Y	Y	N (C )	N (C )	N (Erlang)	N (Java)
Trivial install	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Trivial usage	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N
Daemon included	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Standalone	N (Rails only)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Reserve	N	Y	N	N	Y	N	Y	Y
Persistent queues	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y
Lightweight checks	N (DB polling)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Memcache interface	N (database)	Y	Y	Y	N (custom)	Y	N (AMQP)	N (Stomp)
Benchmark1	216	893	2902	1182	3702	315	703	434
Praises	Easy w/ Rails	Parallel?	Simple	Simple	Very fast	Easy compile	Power	Reliable
Annoyances	Slow, Rails only	Build :(	Pruning :(	Buggy	No persist	Slow	Client	Slowish
Recommended	For Rails	Maybe	Maybe	No	For speed	No	For complex	For stability

Key	Yes	No, caution	No, warning

Benchmark is a naive measure of sequential puts-gets per second and does NOT accurately represent how these systems will perform under a realistic load.