NServiceBus vs. MassTransit

July 15, 2014 · 2 min read

I have got an interesting request to compare and choose the right integration technology for one of my customer.

By the end of the day the technologies were limited by NServiceBus and MassTransit systems only.

The comparing process is simple. We create a sieve and filter the technologies through it. In the end we have got several, one or even zero winner.

The filters are the mix of technology, life cycle or old man questions. The whole filter process looks unscientific and unsystematic but it is sane (I hope) and simple.

Here are the filters:

  • What systems do we integrate?

  • What are your development resources: the team skills, the team agility, the team size?

  • Java, .NET or both?

  • What is the life horizon of the integration? 1, 2, 5, 10 years?

  • The nonfunctional requirements:

  • reliability

  • sustainability

  • scalability

  • performance: throughput (messages per sec/day); message size; latency

  • etc.

The integration technology could fail just on one filter and it will be enough to filter it out of competition.

So how NServiceBus and MassTransit compete there? They are very similar in technology aspects and a non-technology factor should give us the winner. It is the life horizon factor.

Here is the development activity on the code base of both systems:

image

image

Do I need to comment on those graphs? Probably not.

OK Let’s do one more check with the Google Trends:

image

There is a company that supports the NServiceBus, it is the Particular Software. The MassTransit is supported by open source community only, that had shown a lot of enthusiasm at early years but pretty much stopped by now. The key developers of the MassTransit have moved on some other projects.

I did not work with any of this system and, by any means, I do not choose the “best” integration system. Some of the features of one system could be much better then other, it doesn't matter now. I do not choose the better system, I do chose the failed system only for my specific requirements.

It happens the customer wants the integration code works and constantly improves at last next 5 years. From this perspective the MassTransit failed.

[Update: 2014-07-16
 BTW One of the core developer of the NServiceBus, Udi Dahan, made a comment on this post about the first picture. Seems a good proof of the healthy system.]

Print | posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2014 12:49 PM

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Leonid Ganeline

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