Question

I would appreciate some general pointers and opinions regarding which of the two messaging systems is

• easier to manage
• has less gotchas or magic stuff one needs to know and avoid
• has less overal dependencies
• is simple to work with.

Answer 1

easier to manage

hornetQ has a clear API for management and it’s very easy to use.

has less gotchas or magic stuff one needs to know and avoid

hornetQ was made for the embedded case. It is very, very easy to integrate it in your code. As a matter of fact you can do it with less than 10 lines of code.

has less overall dependencies

Everything on HornetQ is modular. The only required dependency on HornetQ is Netty which is the network provider.

is simple to work with.

HornetQ is very simple to use. Clear API, and mainly, the documentation is very, very complete.

You don’t need to buy any books to use HornetQ. All the docs are right there for free at the hornetq’s website.