Microservices Engine (MSE) supports two engine types -- Nacos and ZooKeeper -- and two editions -- Professional and Developer. Choose an engine type based on your application stack and workload, then select an edition based on your availability and support requirements.
MSE does not support edition changes after instance creation. You cannot upgrade from Developer Edition to Professional Edition, or downgrade from Professional Edition to Developer Edition. To switch editions, create a new instance and migrate your workloads.
Engine types
MSE Microservices Registry provides Nacos and ZooKeeper engines for service registration, discovery, and configuration management.
Nacos engine: Runs Nacos 2.x by default and is compatible with earlier Nacos versions. Fully compatible with the Eureka protocol, delivering 50% better performance than open-source Eureka.
ZooKeeper engine: Runs ZooKeeper 3.8.0 by default and is compatible with versions from ZooKeeper 3.4.0 onward.
When to use each engine
| Scenario | Recommended engine | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Migrating from self-managed Nacos | Nacos | Direct compatibility with existing Nacos clients |
| Migrating from self-managed Eureka | Nacos | Full Eureka protocol support; open-source Eureka 2.x is discontinued and Eureka 1.x receives no new features |
| Migrating from self-managed ZooKeeper | ZooKeeper | Direct compatibility with existing ZooKeeper clients |
| New microservices deployment | Nacos | Rich feature set for service discovery and configuration management |
| Big data and distributed coordination | ZooKeeper | Built-in distributed locks, distributed queues, and high availability (HA) coordination |
Editions
MSE offers two editions for both engine types:
Professional Edition: For production workloads requiring multi-zone HA, a Service-Level Agreement (SLA) of up to 99.95%, enhanced performance, and expert support.
Developer Edition: For development, testing, and non-critical workloads with single-node deployment and open-source-level performance.
Features shared across both engines
The following capabilities apply to both Nacos and ZooKeeper engines, with differences between Professional Edition and Developer Edition.
| Feature | Professional Edition | Developer Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment model | Multi-zone: instances deployed evenly across availability zones with automatic node failure detection and recovery | Single-node: no multi-zone disaster recovery |
| SLA | Up to 99.95% | No SLA guarantee |
| Dynamic scaling | Scale and reconfigure without restarts, reducing service downtime | Not supported |
| Runtime optimization | Built on Alibaba Dragonwell with deep tuning; overall performance improved by more than 40% | Open-source-level performance |
| Expert service | Product and R&D experts provide online support, stability recommendations, parameter tuning, and best practices | Not supported |
| Alert management | Supported | Supported |
| Graceful migration | Supported | Supported |
Graceful migration allows you to migrate Spring Cloud and Dubbo applications from a self-managed registry to MSE without modifying code or suspending services. Application access is unaffected during migration.
Nacos-specific features
| Feature | Professional Edition | Developer Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Supported engine versions | Nacos 2.0.x, Nacos 2.1 (compatible with Nacos 1.x and 2.x clients) | Nacos 2.0.x, Nacos 2.1 (compatible with Nacos 1.x and 2.x clients) |
| Observability | Registry, configuration center, and resource monitoring. Advanced metrics and dashboards: service pushes, persistent connections, client version, Java Virtual Machine (JVM). | Registry, configuration center, and resource monitoring |
| Access authentication | Supported | Supported |
| Configuration encryption (via Key Management Service (KMS)) | Supported | Supported |
| Eureka protocol | Supported | Supported |
| Diamond protocol (Application Configuration Management) | Supported | Supported |
| Non-Java and Java application traffic interworking | Supported | Supported |
| Empty list protection | Supported | Supported |
| Configuration push tracks | Supported | Not supported |
Feature descriptions:
Access authentication: Prevents unauthorized users from accessing Nacos instances. Keeps configurations confidential and secure.
Configuration encryption: Encrypts configurations using Key Management Service (KMS). Ensures encrypted storage and transmission.
Traffic interworking (non-Java and Java): Enables communication between applications deployed on Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh (ASM) instances and Java applications registered with MSE, based on service discovery.
ZooKeeper-specific features
For ZooKeeper Professional Edition instances, a maximum of 2,000 ephemeral nodes can be created per session to maintain instance stability. Review the ephemeral node configuration on your client and evaluate whether throttling affects your workloads before migrating from Developer Edition.
| Feature | Professional Edition | Developer Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Supported engine versions | ZooKeeper 3.8.0 (compatible with versions 3.4.x to 3.8.x) | ZooKeeper 3.8.0 (compatible with versions 3.4.x to 3.8.x) |
| Hot reloading optimization | Optimized class loading and reduced startup downtime | Not optimized |
| Child node management | Custom policies to limit child node count and prevent performance degradation | Basic features only |
Recommended edition by use case
| Use case | Recommended edition | Key reasons |
|---|---|---|
| Production services with end users | Professional Edition | 99.95% SLA, multi-zone HA, automatic failure recovery |
| Applications requiring expert guidance | Professional Edition | Access to product and R&D experts for stability and tuning |
| High-throughput workloads | Professional Edition | 40%+ performance improvement via Alibaba Dragonwell optimization |
| Development and testing | Developer Edition | Cost-effective single-node deployment for non-critical environments |
| Proof-of-concept projects | Developer Edition | Sufficient for validating application architecture |
| Non-critical internal tools | Developer Edition | Basic feature set meets non-production requirements |