Why Apache RocketMQ’s Graduation to Top‑Level Project Matters for Developers

On September 25, the Apache Software Foundation announced that Alibaba's donated open‑source project RocketMQ officially graduated from the Apache community to become an Apache Top‑Level Project (TLP). Apache RocketMQ is the first top‑level project in China outside the Hadoop ecosystem, showcasing Alibaba's latest open‑source effort on the international stage and attracting widespread attention and positive evaluation from the global open‑source community.

RocketMQ, opened source by Alibaba's middleware technology department (Aliware) in 2012 as a third‑generation distributed messaging middleware, is known for high performance, low latency, and high reliability, handling the Double Eleven transaction peak (2016: 170,000 transactions per second) and delivering stable, excellent performance across the production chain. Since open sourcing, RocketMQ has been widely used by hundreds of enterprises domestically and internationally.

RocketMQ fully embraces the Apache Way, continuously developing and expanding the community ecosystem, attracting many domestic and foreign Committers and PMC members. After more than half a year of effort, it successfully graduated to an Apache top‑level project. As the ecosystem grows, it now spans e‑commerce, IoT, finance, big data and can connect to other top‑level open‑source ecosystems such as Spark, Ignite, and Storm, demonstrating Alibaba’s commitment to open source and its ability to lead and maintain top‑level projects.

In recent years, Alibaba has continuously increased its investment in technology, long embracing open source, actively joining many international open‑source organizations including the Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and Linux Foundation. By the end of last year, Alibaba had contributed and maintained over 120 open‑source projects covering middleware, development frameworks, databases, and various tooling.

As an important department of Alibaba’s Infrastructure Business Group, the middleware technology department has been at the forefront of technological ecosystem innovation, expanding Alibaba’s influence in the community through participation and leadership in open‑source projects and events such as the Alibaba Middleware Performance Challenge. The RocketMQ founder said Alibaba adheres to openness and sharing, hoping more enthusiasts join the RocketMQ community to build a world‑class messaging middleware.