NATS Messaging

Overview

NATS is a lightweight, high-performance messaging system for distributed applications. Simpler than Kafka, faster than RabbitMQ, with built-in persistence (JetStream), key-value store, and object store. Single binary, zero dependencies, runs anywhere.

When to Use

• Microservice-to-microservice communication (events, commands, queries)
• Real-time data streaming with persistence and replay
• Distributed key-value store without running Redis
• Request/reply patterns (synchronous messaging over async transport)
• Replacing Kafka/RabbitMQ in small-to-medium deployments

Instructions

Setup