When You Should Choose Event Hubs Over IoT Hub for IoT Event Streaming
· 6 min read
Introduction
Have you ever wondered which service to choose for processing IoT telemetry on Azure — IoT Hub or Event Hubs?
Since IoT Hub has “IoT” in its name, some people might choose it instinctively. However, it actually depends on the requirements of your system.
In this post, I’ll walk through the requirements and the math that led me to choose Event Hubs.
General Comparison of IoT Hub and Event Hubs
| Capability | IoT Hub | Event Hubs |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Complete IoT device connectivity, management, and cloud-to-device control | High-throughput event streaming and real-time analytics pipelines |
| Supported protocols | MQTT, AMQP, HTTPS | AMQP, HTTPS, Kafka (Standard tier and above) |
| Device management | Device twins, direct methods, provisioning service, per-device identities | Not provided; clients authenticate via shared access policies |
| Cloud-to-device messaging | Built-in queues for commands and twin synchronization | Not available; downstream services must push responses |
| Scaling model | IoT Hub units bundle message quotas, throttles, and cloud-to-device limits | Throughput units allocate ingress/egress bandwidth and partitions |
| Pricing approach | Pay per hub unit with quotas for messages and features | Pay per throughput unit plus optional features like capture |