install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install nsq

local Homebrew formula metadata

Linux

Alpine Linux apkverified · 92%

sudo apk add nsq

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · nsq · source: dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org

Nixverified · 92%

nix profile install nixpkgs#nsq

nixpkgs package indexes · pkgs/by-name/ns/nsq/package.nix · source: api.github.com

overview

Package summary

Realtime distributed messaging platform

Project links

Commands and aliases

nsq_stat
nsq_tail
nsq_to_file
nsq_to_http
nsq_to_nsq
nsqadmin
nsqd
nsqlookupd
to_nsq

history

Project history and usage

NSQ is a Go-based realtime distributed messaging platform from Bitly's engineering ecosystem. It was built for decentralized message processing, using `nsqd` producers/queues, `nsqlookupd` discovery, and `nsqadmin` operations tooling instead of a single centralized broker.

Project history

Bitly announced NSQ publicly in October 2012 as a realtime message processing system designed for Bitly's scale and billions of messages per day. The NSQ community page credits Matt Reiferson and Jehiah Czebotar as the designers and developers, with support from Bitly, maintainers, and contributors.

Adoption history

The December 2012 Bitly follow-up said NSQ had been released on October 9, 2012, had client libraries in seven languages, and had quickly become one of the most-watched Go projects on GitHub. NSQ's later homepage kept the same positioning: distributed topologies without single points of failure, horizontal scaling without centralized brokers, and both pub-sub and load-balanced delivery.

On July 1, 2026, Homebrew listed NSQ 1.3.0 with 273 installs in its 365-day analytics window. That is modest Homebrew usage, but the package remains useful for developers who need local NSQ daemons and CLI tools while testing older or deliberately simple queueing architectures.

How it is used

Package users install NSQ to get the daemons and operational tools: `nsqd` receives, queues, and delivers messages; `nsqlookupd` lets consumers discover producers; `nsqadmin` provides a web UI; helper commands such as `nsq_tail`, `nsq_to_file`, `nsq_to_http`, and `to_nsq` make it easy to inspect or bridge streams.

The important operational tradeoff is explicit in the docs: NSQ is primarily in-memory, can spill past a memory queue threshold, provides at-least-once delivery, does not guarantee ordering, and expects clients to be idempotent or de-duplicate work.

Why package nerds care

NSQ is a classic small distributed-systems package: easy to run, easy to reason about, and intentionally less feature-heavy than Kafka-class systems. It is most attractive when a team wants simple producer-local queueing, HTTP/TCP protocols, and discovery without operating a broker cluster.

Timeline

October 9, 2012: NSQ was released publicly by Bitly.
December 2012: Bitly reported client libraries in seven languages and early strong GitHub attention.
July 1, 2026: Homebrew listed NSQ 1.3.0.

Related projects

go-nsq is the official Go client package for NSQ.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: orange

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal. formula declares a Homebrew service.

Risk classifier

orange risk · medium confidence · infrastructure

Why

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal
formula declares a Homebrew service

Signals

metadata:service
text:http,sql

Install behavior

No Homebrew post-install hook is recorded in formula metadata.
Formula metadata declares a service or daemon block.
Homebrew bottle metadata is available for 6 platform targets.
Build metadata lists 1 build dependencies.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure
`nsq_stat`	cli	global executable
`nsq_tail`	cli	global executable
`nsq_to_file`	cli	global executable
`nsq_to_http`	cli	global executable
`nsq_to_nsq`	cli	global executable
`nsqadmin`	cli	global executable
`nsqd`	cli	global executable
`nsqlookupd`	cli	global executable
`to_nsq`	cli	global executable

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-07-08

manager version1.3.0

manager updated2026-06-06

local dataok

upstreamcurrent

latest detectedv1.3.0

https://github.com/nsqio/nsq

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:nsq
Version	1.3.0
Package manager	Homebrew
Package manager page	https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/nsq
Homepage	https://nsq.io/
Repository	https://github.com/nsqio/nsq
Upstream docs	https://nsq.io/
License	MIT
Source archive	https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/archive/refs/tags/v1.3.0.tar.gz
Last updated	2026-06-06T11:29:13Z
Pulse	updated
Build dependencies	go
Bottle	available (on arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, sonoma, x86_64_linux)
Homebrew post-install	not defined
Service	declared

registry facts

Source database details

Source Database	Homebrew formula API
Tap	homebrew/core
Full Name	nsq
Version Scheme	0
Revision	0
Head Version	HEAD
Bottle Stable Root URL	https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core
Deprecated	no
Disabled	no
Keg Only	no
URL Keys	head stable

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Nix95%

nsq

nix profile install nixpkgs#nsq

normalized package name match
Matched by: Nsq

nixpkgs package indexes · api.github.com · nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/ns/nsq/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

apk95%

nsq 1.3.0-r10

A realtime distributed messaging platform

https://nsq.io/

sudo apk add nsq

License: MIT
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: nsq
1 dependencies
1 provides
normalized package name match
Matched by: Nsq

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org · Alpine Linux edge package indexes: nsq from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/nsq.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
Nucleus package database
av.db category and tag curation
cross-ecosystem install command graph
curated package history
external package-manager database matches
package relationship graph
package version freshness
package-page enrichment

Install nsq with Homebrew, apk, Nix