RabbitMQ was created in 2007 by LShift and CohesiveFT as an open-source implementation of the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP). The goal was to provide a robust, interoperable message broker that could work across different platforms and programming languages.
| Year |
Event |
| 2007 |
First release of RabbitMQ |
| 2008 |
AMQP 0-9-1 support |
| 2009 |
Growing adoption in enterprise |
| 2010 |
Spring AMQP integration |
¶ VMware and Pivotal Era (2010-2019)
In 2010, VMware acquired SpringSource, which had partnered with Rabbit Technologies (formed by LShift and CohesiveFT). This brought RabbitMQ under the VMware/Pivotal umbrella:
- 2011: RabbitMQ 2.0 with improved clustering
- 2013: Pivotal formed, RabbitMQ became part of Pivotal Software
- 2015: RabbitMQ 3.5 with improved management UI
- 2017: RabbitMQ 3.6 with quorum queues preview
¶ VMware Tanzu and Beyond (2019-Present)
| Year |
Event |
| 2019 |
VMware re-acquires Pivotal |
| 2020 |
RabbitMQ 3.8 with quorum queues |
| 2021 |
RabbitMQ 3.9 with streaming plugin |
| 2022 |
RabbitMQ 3.10 with improved performance |
| 2024 |
RabbitMQ 4.0 with major improvements |
| 2026 |
RabbitMQ 4.2 stable |
RabbitMQ pioneered several features in the messaging space:
- AMQP implementation: First widely-adopted open-source AMQP broker
- Plugin architecture: Extensible via Erlang plugins
- Management UI: Built-in web interface for monitoring
- Multiple protocols: AMQP, MQTT, STOMP, WebSTOMP
- Quorum queues: Raft-based replicated queues for high availability
| Aspect |
Status |
| Latest Version |
4.2.x (2026) |
| License |
MPL-2.0 (Mozilla Public License) |
| Language |
Erlang/OTP |
| Use Cases |
Message brokering, task queues, microservices |
| Year |
Event |
| 2007 |
RabbitMQ first released |
| 2010 |
VMware acquisition |
| 2013 |
Pivotal Software formed |
| 2019 |
VMware Tanzu |
| 2020 |
Quorum queues stable |
| 2026 |
RabbitMQ 4.2 stable |