ApsaraMQ for RabbitMQ offers five instance editions across two categories -- Serverless and Subscription -- each with a different deployment model, billing structure, and feature set. Choose an edition based on your isolation requirements, throughput needs, and budget.
Edition overview
| Category | Edition | Deployment | Billing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serverless | Shared | Shared cluster (logically isolated) | Pay-by-cumulative-usage | Variable workloads with unpredictable traffic |
| Serverless | Exclusive | Dedicated physical cluster | Reserved + Elastic | Steady workloads that need resource isolation |
| Subscription | Enterprise Edition | Shared cluster (logically isolated) | Subscription (upfront) with elastic TPS | Cost-effective production workloads on shared infrastructure |
| Subscription | Platinum Edition | Dedicated physical cluster | Subscription (upfront) with elastic TPS | Mission-critical workloads requiring maximum throughput and dedicated resources |
| Subscription | Professional Edition | Shared cluster (logically isolated) | Subscription (upfront) with elastic TPS | Lightweight workloads in supported regions |
New Professional Edition instances are available only in the China (Qingdao), China (Hohhot), Japan (Tokyo), and regions. In other regions, use Serverless instances with reserved and elastic specifications instead -- they provide better performance at lower cost. Existing Professional Edition instances continue to work and can be upgraded or downgraded.
Shared vs. dedicated deployment
Shared (logically isolated): Multiple tenants share the same physical cluster. Resources are logically isolated per tenant. If another tenant generates a traffic spike, your instance may experience transient performance fluctuations. Best when cost efficiency outweighs guaranteed performance isolation.
Dedicated (exclusive physical cluster): Your instance runs on dedicated hardware with no resource contention from other tenants. Network, compute, and storage resources are exclusively allocated to your workload. Best for workloads with strict latency, throughput, or compliance requirements.
Serverless Shared, Enterprise Edition, and Professional Edition use shared deployment. Serverless Exclusive and Platinum Edition use dedicated deployment.
Billing
| Edition | Billing model | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Serverless Shared | Pay-by-cumulative-usage | Charged based on the total number of messages sent and received. See Billing of Serverless instances. |
| Serverless Exclusive | Reserved + Elastic | Pay for reserved capacity upfront. Usage beyond the reserved capacity is billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. See Billing of Serverless instances. |
| Enterprise / Platinum / Professional | Subscription | Pay upfront for a fixed term. Enable elastic TPS to increase peak throughput beyond the base specification. See Billing of subscription instances. |
Availability and reliability
All editions provide the same high-availability and data-reliability guarantees:
Multi-zone high availability (HA): Instances are deployed across multiple availability zones.
Triplicate data persistence: All message data is stored with three replicas to prevent data loss.
SLA: 99.95% for most editions. Platinum Edition offers a 99.99% SLA.
Elastic capacity
Each edition supports elastic scaling beyond its base specification. The elastic headroom varies:
| Edition | Elastic capacity limit |
|---|---|
| Serverless Shared | Up to 50,000 TPS |
| Serverless Exclusive | 1x the base specification |
| Enterprise Edition | 1x the base specification, up to 50,000 TPS |
| Professional Edition | 0.5x the base specification |
Feature comparison
| Feature | Shared | Exclusive | Enterprise | Platinum | Professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard (Prometheus + Grafana) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Global message routing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Encryption in transit (TLS v1.2) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Encryption at rest | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Version management | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Notable differences:
Enterprise Edition is the only edition that supports encryption at rest and version management.
Professional Edition does not support dashboards, global message routing, or encryption.
Resource limits
Cluster limits
| Resource | Shared | Exclusive | Enterprise | Platinum | Professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vhosts | 200 | 2,000 | 200 | 4,096 | 200 |
| Exchanges | 6,000 | 10,000 | 6,000 | 80,000 | 6,000 |
| Queues | 6,000 | 10,000 | 6,000 | 80,000 | 6,000 |
| Bindings | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | No limit | 20,000 |
| Queues per exchange | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| Max message size | 10 MB | 50 MB | 10 MB | 50 MB | 64 KB |
| Max message retention | 3 days | 3 days | 3 days | 3 days | 3 days |
| Max delivery attempts | 16 | 16 | 16 | 64 | 16 |
Exclusive and Platinum Edition support custom queue-per-exchange limits. Exclusive Edition users can submit a ticket to request customization. Platinum Edition users should contact Alibaba Cloud technical support. After customization, Exclusive Edition instances cannot be downgraded to a shared cluster.
Connections
| Edition | Connection limit |
|---|---|
| Shared | 10,000 |
| Exclusive | 20,000 |
| Enterprise Edition | Purchase by configuration. Free quota: 2,000. Maximum: 10,000. |
| Platinum Edition | Purchase by instance type. Free quota: 50,000. Maximum: 100,000. |
| Professional Edition | 4x the number of queues. Range: 1,000 to 5,000. |
Channels per connection
| Edition | Channel limit per connection |
|---|---|
| Shared | 2,000 |
| Exclusive | 3,000 |
| Enterprise Edition | min(queue count, 2,048) |
| Platinum Edition | 3,000 |
| Professional Edition | max(queue count, 64) |
Enterprise Edition: The channel limit equals the queue count, up to a maximum of 2,048. If you have fewer than 2,048 queues, the limit matches the queue count. If you have 2,048 or more queues, the limit is 2,048.
Professional Edition: The channel limit is at least 64. If you have more than 64 queues, the limit equals the queue count.
Consumers per queue
| Edition | Consumer limit |
|---|---|
| Shared | Total consumers = queues x 4. Per queue: 800 to 5,000. |
| Exclusive | No limit |
| Enterprise Edition | Total consumers = queues x 4. Per queue: 800 to 5,000. |
| Platinum Edition | No limit |
| Professional Edition | Total consumers = queues x 4. Per queue: 50 to 5,000. |
Delayed messages
| Edition | Maximum delay |
|---|---|
| Shared | 7 days |
| Exclusive | 7 days (customizable via support ticket; after customization, the instance cannot be downgraded to a shared cluster) |
| Enterprise Edition | 7 days |
| Platinum Edition | 7 days (customizable via Alibaba Cloud technical support) |
| Professional Edition | 24 hours |
Consumption timeout
The consumption timeout defines how long a consumer can hold a message before acknowledging it. If a consumer exceeds this timeout, the channel closes and the unacknowledged message returns to the queue for redelivery.
| Edition | Default | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Shared | 5 minutes | 3 hours |
| Exclusive | 30 minutes | 12 hours |
| Enterprise Edition | 5 minutes | 3 hours |
| Platinum Edition | 30 minutes | 12 hours |
| Professional Edition | 1 minute | 10 minutes |
For more information, see Message timeout and retry.
API rate limits
The following rate limits apply to management operations. These limits do not affect message publishing or consuming throughput.
| Operation | API | Shared / Enterprise / Professional | Exclusive / Platinum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear a queue | purgeQueue | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Create an exchange | exchangeDeclare | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Delete an exchange | exchangeDelete | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Create a queue | queueDeclare | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Delete a queue | queueDelete | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Create a binding | queueBind | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Delete a binding | queueUnbind | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Recover messages | basicRecover | 500 TPS | No limit |
| Requeue a message | basicReject(requeue=true), basicNack(requeue=true) | 20 TPS | No limit |
Choose an edition
| If you need... | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-per-use with no upfront commitment | Serverless Shared | Elastic capacity scales up to 50,000 TPS. No reserved resources to manage. |
| Dedicated hardware without a subscription | Serverless Exclusive | Reserved capacity on isolated infrastructure. Pay only for overages beyond your reservation. |
| Fixed-cost subscription with encryption at rest | Enterprise Edition | The only edition with encryption at rest and version management. Runs on shared infrastructure for cost efficiency. |
| Maximum performance and highest SLA | Platinum Edition | Dedicated hardware. Supports up to 80,000 queues, 100,000 connections, and 64 delivery retries. 99.99% SLA. |
| Lightweight workloads in select regions | Professional Edition | Available only in China (Qingdao), China (Hohhot), and Japan (Tokyo). For new deployments in other regions, Serverless instances provide better performance and cost-effectiveness. |