The Use and Performance of MQTT and CoAP

as Internet of Things Application Protocol

using NodeMCU ESP8266

1st Sandy Suryo Prayogo 2nd Yulisdin Mukhlis 3rd Bayu Kumoro Yakti
dept. Electrical Engineering dept. Electrical Engineering dept. Electrical Engineering
Gunadarma University Gunadrma University Gunadrma University
Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia
sandy_sr@staff.gunadarma.ac.id ymuckhlis@staff.gunadarma.ac.id bayuyakti@staff.gunadarma.ac.id

Abstract— The number of high-performance IoT devices has 20922: 2016). MQTT provides asynchronous publication /
increased, resulting in much development of services both in subscription protocols that run on top of TCP / IP [2]. CoAP
terms of equipment and services for IoT. The major challenges was designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
in the realization of the services is the convenience of use of the using a subset of the HTTP method to target limited help
protocol and time spend data from sending to be accessed. devices that run on UDP and use synchronous request /
MQTT and CoAP are usually used for such services because response models. Both of these protocols are used as research
these protocols can support the publish-subscribe architecture. objects because CoAP and MQTT are the protocols most
So many applications that have been developed using those widely used for IoT today. The protocol can support nodes
application protocol. However, these protocols on simple devices
with connections to the internet using existing ones.
such as NodeMCU usually only use one broker or server, so it is
necessary to choose the right protocol for the type of The purpose of this research is to compare the use,
communication architecture based on several assessments. In accuracy, and performance of two types application protocol,
this paper, we propose a scheme to stream a lot of data from there is MQTT and CoAP using NodeMCU ESP8266 as a
publisher to subscriber using an IoT device that is sender and receiver of the data. NodeMCU is an IoT device
microcontroller NodeMCU 8266 using two different protocol, that can act as publisher and subscriber. The publisher, will
there are MQTT and CoAP. NodeMCU will act as publisher or stream data to server and subscriber will show the data then
responder and can act as subscriber or sending request to get compare it’s error and time needed of all the data. This paper
data from publisher. By the experimentation, we can see that the
is organized in Section II introduces the related works on the
differences time spend, accuracy and the convenience from
using MQTT and CoAP schemes. MQTT is more accurate than
MQTT and CoAP protocols for IoT environment. Section III
CoAP, but CoAP requires less time to complete the presents the implementation and performance comparison
transmission. The use of MQTT and CoAP also varies between MQTT and CoAP. Then, Section IV describes the
depending on the purpose and form of communication. conclusion of this paper [4] [5].

Keywords—Internet of Things, MQTT, CoAP, NodeMCU II. RELATED WORKS

ESP8266, Application Protocol A. Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT)
I. INTRODUCTION Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a
protocol in the application layer protocol that is used for
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of more than
devices with limited resources. This uses a topic-based public-
one of electrical devices like smart phone, computer, vehicles,
subscribe architecture. Where, If the client submits on a topic,
and other items embedded with electronics, mechatronic,
then all clients who subscribe to that topic will receive the
sensors, software, and network connectivity. Because each of
message[6].
devices connected, it can exchange and collect data. Each
device is unique in order to identify them through its The MQTT protocol must have a basic transport that
embedded system, so it can communicate within the existing provides requested bytes of data flow, without any loss, from
internet infrastructure [1]. the client to the server and the other way around. The transport
protocol is used to carry MQTT is TCP / IP as defined in
To be able to make a device that is able to communicate in
[RFC793]. A network with no connection transports such as
a system, there are two methods commonly used today. Each
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) are not suitable because they
method is an application layer protocol for the IoT application,
might lose or rearrange data. String Security in MQTT fully
which is the Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), and the
supports UTF-8 [3].
Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). MQTT is designed
to target lightweight machine-to-machine (M2M)
communication, and becomes an ISO standard (ISO / IEC

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 MQTT is reliable for sending Application Messages based specification of which is out of this document's scope. CoAP
on 3 types of Service Quality (QoS). The Symmetrical of messages shown in figure 4 are encoded in a basic binary
delivery protocols, Client and Server can take the role of format. The message format is fixed size and starts with 4-
Sender or Receiver [7]. byte header followed by a variable-length Token value, which
can be between 0 and 8 bytes long [9].
• QoS 0: at Most one is delivered, the receiver does not
send and the sender isn't performing any retry. the receiver
gets the message from the broker completely or not at all.
• QoS 1: At least one is delivered. This services quality
will check whether the messages has reached the recipient at
least once. The PUBLISH QoS 1 packet has a Packet Identifier
in its variable header and is recognized by the PUBACK
Package which can ensure that at least one message is sent.
• QoS 2: Exactly one sent. This QoS is the highest quality
service and is used when loss or duplication of messages
cannot be received. There are four-way handshake
mechanisms that is used for exactly one message delivery [3].
Fig. 3 IoT Communication model using CoAP
MQTT Have two types of header, there was fix header and
variable header. Variable header is place between fix header CoAP protocol is based on Representational State Transfer
and payload. Figure 1 show the fix header of first byte [3]. (REST) architecture and can use request-response model like
HTTP. adding to request-response model, CoAP can also be
able to use publish-subscribe architecture using an extended
GET method. CoAP, the publish-subscribe model uses
Universal Resource Identifier (URI) instead of topics like
MQTT uses [9].
Fig. 1 MQTT Fix Header Message

MQTT allows every node to register a broker-side

message (Last Will and Testament) that the broker sends to all
subscribed clients on the topic, Like show in figure 2. This
provides a basic automated mechanism for the monitoring and
also management of disconnections in highly dynamic IoT
environments [8]. Fig. 4 CoAP Message Format

This means in CoAP protocol, subscribers will subscribe

to a certain resource indicated by the URI. When a publisher
posts data to the URI, all the subscribers are notified about
the new value of the data. The port used in CoAP is 5683 [9].
CoAP is reliable for supporting four options in terms of
different types of messages, namely Confirmable, Non-
confirmable, Acknowledgement, Reset [8]. In actuality,
CoAP provides robust security. CoAP's default choice of
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) parameters is
equivalent to 3072-bit RSA keys, which also still runs fine on
the smallest nodes [10].
Fig. 2 IoT Communication model using MQTT

B. Constrain Application Protocol (CoAP)

The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a
specialized web transfer protocol used with constrained nodes
and constrained (e.g., low-power, lossy) networks. most of the
nodes have 8-bit microcontrollers with small amounts of
ROM and RAM, while limited networks such as IPv6 over
Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)
most have high packet error rates and a typical output of 10s
of kbit/s. The protocol is made for machine-to-machine
(M2M) applications such as smart farming and smart home Fig. 5 Differences of MQTT and CoAP
shown in figure 3 [9].
MQTT and CoAP have a same function but different in
many ways of use. The main differences between CoAP and
CoAP is based on the exchange of compact messages MQTT have been concluded in the Fig. 5.
which by default are transported over UDP. This is also used
for over other transports such as SMS, TCP, or SCTP, the

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C. NodeMCU ESP8266
NodeMCU ESP8266 NodeMCU is an embedded
microcontroller system with Wi-Fi already intact. Which
means it no need to use additional Wi-Fi devices. The system
architecture on the chip (SoC) has a function as
communication between GPIO by connecting to the Internet
and transmitting data through the Internet. Figure 6 shows the
I / O pins of NodeMCU [11].

Fig. 7 Scheme of data transfer using MQTT

Each IoT device need to connected to Internet Service

Provider (ISP). There are two different ISP used in this
experiment, the delay will measure as the difference between
the time when a data was received in each subscriber and also
from different ISP use.

B. CoAP Experimental Architecture

In CoAP architecture, NodeMCU act as client that sending
data to another NodeMCU as server. The data receive by
server is show in serial monitor of Arduino IDE show in figure
8. The data sending is same as in MQTT experiment, there is
16-bits of random binary. Client sending data to the specific
URI that provided by server. Server can create a lot of URI.
Fig. 6 NodeMCU ESP8266 I/O Pin Datasheet So, clients that function as sensor nodes can send data to one
server at once but in different URI.
NodeMCU uses the standard Lua Programming firmware
In this scheme we can only use a local network for using
script, in order to simplify programming, it is necessary to
CoAP because there is no free available server in internet for
add the existing library in the Arduino IDE software section using CoAP protocol, and there is a few applications that
that can be downloaded open and can running well in mostly development under CoAP protocol in windows and android.
Operating system.

III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

To study the use and performance of MQTT and CoAP,
Arduino IDE is used to run those protocols using NodeMCU
ESP8266 as the IoT devices. The scenario is one of the
NodeMCU is act as the publisher or the node that send the
data. the data transferred in the form of binary random
between 0-20000 decimal or 16-bits data maximum. The
subscriber/client consist of three types devices, there was an
android smartphone, a personal computer, and another
NodeMCU.
Fig. 8 Scheme of data transfer using CoAP
A. MQTT Experimental Architecture
In MQTT architecture, NodeMCU as publisher sending a IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
random binary with maximum 16-bits data to the broker with
specific topic. Broker used in this experiment is In the experimental setup involved only one publisher, one
“hivemq.com”. That topic subscribed by 3 different devices broker, three subscriber, and two different ISP. Random data
like show in figure 7. The first device use is NodeMCU, from the publisher sent every 200 millisecond, using
second device is an android smartphone using application NodeMCU and Arduino IDE. The code shows in figure 9 for
“MQTT Dashboard” that can be downloaded from google MQTT publisher sending random 16-bits of binary. The code
play store and the third is a personal computer using “MQTT is based on Arduino library under MIT license [12]. and figure
lens” that can be downloaded as google chrome add-ons. 10 show the CoAP with same scheme code is based on
Arduino library [13] .

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 without delay, all the data will receive after 4 seconds, and 10
seconds for 50 data, 20 second for 100 data.
In MQTT experiment, we tried using two different internet
service provider ISP and three different receiver applications.
The ISP used is (ISP1) with poor network, and (ISP2) with
strong network. We got a significant difference show in table
1 from the side of different ISP. The time needed for
subscriber to get all the data using ISP1 is almost twice times
longer than the ISP2. In terms of recipient applications there
is almost no time difference for receiving all the data sent, the
experiment, the experiment was carried out three times for
each case.

TABLE I. Time needed for sending data using MQTT protocol to different
receiver applications
Fig. 9 MQTT Arduino IDE publish random binary code
MQTT MQTT Lens
NodeMCU
Dashboard Receiver
Receiver
Amount of Receiver (PC-Chrome
(Arduino IDE)
Data (Android App) Extension)
(each 16-bits)
ISP 1 ISP 2 ISP 1 ISP 2 ISP 1 ISP 2
(s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s)
9.9 7.2 10 7 10 7
20 9.8 6.5 9 6 9 6
10.1 6.8 10 6 10 6
23.5 15.5 24 15 24 15
50 22.9 17.2 23 17 23 17
23.2 18.8 24 18 24 18
43.3 24.5 44 24 44 24
100 42.8 26.2 43 26 43 26
43.2 25.8 43 25 43 25

CoAP experiment using 2 IoT device as client, there is

NodeMCU and Personal Computer. Transmission using a
local network, because there is no free available server for
CoAP like MQTT. Server in CoAP provided one URI to
Fig. 10 CoAP Arduino IDE server generate random binary code client. Client must send the data to that URI so server can
receive it. In CoAP protocol there is a lot of deficiency. First,
At the MQTT and CoAP protocol, we tried to send 20, 50, because it was UDP the data is streamed, so receiver receive
and 100 data of maximum 16-bits binary. Every subscriber on the data not only once. Second, data is not reliable. Sometimes
MQTT get exactly the same data like publisher without any the data not look like a binary number show in figure 12.
error and also same time of data receive. The example of data
sent show in figure 11.

Fig. 11 Example of data receive on Arduino IDE and MQTT Dashboard

Fig. 12 Example of data receive on Arduino IDE using CoAP
In MQTT and CoAP we tried to send 20, 50, and 100 data
with 1 data every 200 millisecond, if the condition is perfect

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 To calculate the time spent for CoAP sending data from and MQTT for single node. It can also be combined like a lot
client to server. From the experiment, we tried using router. node connected using CoAP then server publish it to internet
All the data received in server is faster compare to MQTT and using MQTT.
nearly in perfect condition. Because CoAP uses UDP without
handshake and using a local server which also not using ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Internet so only one hop from client to server. Each packet of This research was fully supported by Gunadarma
data receives four times shown in table II. University, Jakarta, Indonesia. The authors gratefully
acknowledge Gunadarma University for providing research
funding and for permission in using the research facilities.
TABLE II. Time needed for sending data using CoAP

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