design-patternseda

What is the difference between "Event Gateway" and "Event Bridge" patterns?


In event-driven architecture there are two similar-looking patterns: event bridge and event gateway. I'm not entirely sure what's the difference between them, because they both seem to require a dedicated centralized message broker, whose function is to route message between subsystems.

And especially vexing is the fact event gateway is sometimes described as "compatible with event mesh", which is defined by not having a centralized message broker.

I suspect that one of them is about message exchange within the system, where as the other is about accessing the message exchange from outside of the system (regardless of whether its centralized or not), but I'm still not sure which is which.


Solution

  • Both patterns deal with event routing and management, the Event Gateway is more about handling events within a localized context and performing specific tasks like protocol translation. In contrast, the Event Bridge is designed for broader integration scenarios, connecting different systems and ensuring cohesive event-driven communication across them.