ejabberd is an XMPP server, MQTT broker, and SIP service built on Erlang/OTP that handles real-time messaging at scale.
The platform addresses the need for a unified messaging infrastructure supporting multiple protocols. It solves this by implementing XMPP for instant messaging, MQTT for IoT and publish-subscribe patterns, and SIP for voice over IP, all within a single Erlang-based system designed for high concurrency and fault tolerance. The Erlang foundation provides hot code reloading, distributed clustering, and the ability to handle thousands of concurrent connections efficiently.
Developers should choose ejabberd when building chat systems, IoT platforms, or unified communications infrastructure that requires protocol flexibility and horizontal scalability. It suits projects needing to support multiple messaging standards simultaneously without maintaining separate server implementations. The platform is particularly valuable for deployments requiring high availability and the ability to add capacity by clustering additional nodes. Organizations already invested in Erlang ecosystems will find natural integration, though the learning curve for Erlang-unfamiliar teams should be considered.
The project maintains active continuous integration with automated testing across multiple architectures. Container images are regularly published for both x64 and arm64 platforms, with installation options spanning source compilation, native OS packages, Homebrew, and Docker. Documentation is comprehensively maintained in a dedicated docs site with configuration help available through command-line utilities. Bug reports and feature requests flow through GitHub Issues with contribution guidelines documented in the repository.
