Choose a device communication protocol

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IoT Hub allows devices to use the following protocols for device-side communications:

For information about how these protocols support specific IoT Hub features, see Device-to-cloud communications guidance and Cloud-to-device communications guidance.

The following table provides the high-level recommendations for your choice of protocol:

Protocol When you should choose this protocol
MQTT
MQTT over WebSockets		 Use on all devices that don't require connection to multiple devices, each with its own per-device credentials, over the same TLS connection.
AMQP
AMQP over WebSockets		 Use on field and cloud gateways to take advantage of connection multiplexing across devices.
HTTPS Use for devices that can't support other protocols.

Consider the following points when you choose your protocol for device-side communications:

  • Cloud-to-device pattern. HTTPS doesn't have an efficient way to implement server push. As such, when you're using HTTPS, devices poll IoT Hub for cloud-to-device messages. This approach is inefficient for both the device and IoT Hub. Under current HTTPS guidelines, each device should poll for messages every 25 minutes or more. Issuing more HTTPS receives results in IoT Hub throttling the requests. MQTT and AMQP support server push when receiving cloud-to-device messages. They enable immediate pushes of messages from IoT Hub to the device. If delivery latency is a concern, MQTT or AMQP are the best protocols to use. For rarely connected devices, HTTPS works as well.

  • Field gateways. MQTT and HTTPS support only a single device identity (device ID plus credentials) per TLS connection. For this reason, these protocols aren't supported for field gateway scenarios that require multiplexing messages, using multiple device identities, across either a single connection or a pool of upstream connections to IoT Hub. Such gateways can use a protocol that supports multiple device identities per connection, like AMQP, for their upstream traffic.

  • Low resource devices. The MQTT and HTTPS libraries have a smaller footprint than the AMQP libraries. As such, if the device has limited resources (for example, less than 1 MB of RAM), these protocols might be the only protocol implementation available.

  • Network traversal. The standard AMQP protocol uses port 5671, and MQTT listens on port 8883. Use of these ports could cause problems in networks that are closed to non-HTTPS protocols. Use MQTT over WebSockets, AMQP over WebSockets, or HTTPS in this scenario.

  • Payload size. MQTT and AMQP are binary protocols, which result in more compact payloads than HTTPS.

Warning

When using HTTPS, each device should poll for cloud-to-device messages no more than once every 25 minutes. In development, each device can poll more frequently, if desired.

Important

The following functionality for devices that use X.509 certificate authority (CA) authentication is not yet generally available, and preview mode must be enabled:

  • HTTPS, MQTT over WebSockets, and AMQP over WebSockets protocols.
  • File uploads (all protocols).

These features are generally available on devices that use X.509 thumbprint authentication. To learn more about X.509 authentication with IoT Hub, see Supported X.509 certificates.

Port numbers

Devices can communicate with IoT Hub in Azure using various protocols. Typically, the choice of protocol is driven by the specific requirements of the solution. The following table lists the outbound ports that must be open for a device to be able to use a specific protocol:

Protocol Port
MQTT 8883
MQTT over WebSockets 443
AMQP 5671
AMQP over WebSockets 443
HTTPS 443

The IP address of an IoT hub is subject to change without notice. To learn how to mitigate the effects of IoT hub IP address changes on your IoT solution and devices, see the Best practices section of IoT Hub IP addresses.

Next steps

For more information about how IoT Hub implements the MQTT protocol, see Communicate with your IoT hub using the MQTT protocol.