Message Queue vs Event Bus vs Message Broker
Understand the difference between message queues, event buses, and message brokers — and choose the right pattern when designing async systems
4 sections · 8 lessons
Course outline
The Two Patterns
- Message Queue — One Producer, One Consumer
- Event Bus — One Publisher, Many Subscribers
Message Broker — The Infrastructure Layer
- What a Broker Actually Is
- RabbitMQ — Flexible Routing with Exchanges
Kafka — The Special Case
- Kafka as a Distributed Log, Not Just a Broker
- When Kafka's Log Semantics Change Everything
Decision Framework
- Choosing the Right Pattern
- Concrete Examples from Production Systems