HiveMQ retires Cloud Serverless on 31 December and deletes every cluster

HiveMQ retires Cloud Serverless on 31 December and deletes every cluster

9 November 2026: HiveMQ will retire its Cloud Serverless plan on 31 December 2026, covering both the Free and Pay As You Go tiers, after which MQTT clients cannot connect and every cluster is permanently deleted. The company will not move clients, data or configuration for anyone, and the existing cluster address cannot be kept, which makes this a job on the devices as much as on the server.

Not yet independently verified. This rests on HiveMQ's own documentation, read on 9 November 2026, which does not say when the retirement was announced. We have not seen an independent report. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

The hostname is the hard part

Each Serverless cluster is reached at a URL of the form cluster-id.s1.eu.hivemq.cloud, and HiveMQ says it cannot transfer that address to a new broker. The same restriction applies to a customer moving to one of its own HiveMQ Cloud Starter clusters, because that is a new cluster with a new URL.

So every MQTT client has to be given a new hostname, port, credentials and TLS configuration. On a laptop that is a settings change. On sensors or gateways already installed in the field it may need a firmware or remote configuration update, and a device that misses the change simply goes silent on 1 January.

HiveMQ's documentation carries a useful piece of advice for those rewriting their configuration anyway: use a hostname under a domain the customer controls, so that the broker can be moved again without touching each client.

What disappears with the cluster

Deletion covers retained messages, client sessions, access credentials and permissions, and HiveMQ says a deleted cluster cannot be restored. Access rules therefore need to be copied out and rebuilt on the new broker before the old one goes.

New Serverless clusters can no longer be created, and existing ones cannot be upgraded to Pay As You Go. Current clusters run until the end date, and in the meantime owners can manage credentials and permissions, view connection details, and delete the cluster. A customer who deletes a cluster early cannot create it again, so HiveMQ's own order of steps leaves deletion until the clients have been tested on the new broker.

The free licence shrinks after a year

Anyone whose user account owned a Serverless cluster when the retirement was announced can claim a free Migration licence for the self-managed HiveMQ Enterprise Broker, once per account. It allows 100 concurrent connections and 100 messages a second for 12 months, needs no credit card, and is claimed through the Connect section of the HiveMQ Platform.

Two details deserve attention. Eligibility belongs to the individual user account and not to the organisation, so a colleague may not see the offer. And after 12 months the licence converts, under the same key, to a Lab licence limited to 25 concurrent connections and 25 messages a second, so a fleet running near the higher limit would need a paid Launch or Run plan a year after claiming.

The broker in that case runs on the customer's own servers, virtual machines or Kubernetes, and HiveMQ does not host it. Those wanting a managed service are pointed to HiveMQ Cloud Enterprise.

Where HiveMQ sits in our catalogue

HiveMQ has a company listing with us, and our IoT software category holds nine products. The retirement page does not name a price for the paid plans, so those moving to one should ask for a quote before committing a fleet to it.

Sources

• HiveMQ documentation: HiveMQ Cloud Serverless End of Life (read 9 November 2026), 9 November 2026
• Shutdown Watch: list of upcoming software closures, 9 November 2026