nanomsg is a socket library that provides several common communication patterns. It aims to make the networking layer fast, scalable, and easy to use. Implemented in C, it works on a wide range of operating systems with no further dependencies.

This project has largely been superceded by the nng project. Users are encouraged to use nng if they are able. The nng project is wire compatible with this library, and supports a significant superset of capabilities.

The communication patterns, also called "scalability protocols", are basic blocks for building distributed systems. By combining them you can create a vast array of distributed applications. The following scalability protocols are currently available:

PIPELINE - aggregates messages from multiple sources and load balances them among many destinations

SURVEY - allows to query state of multiple applications in a single go

Scalability protocols are layered on top of the transport layer in the network stack. At the moment, the nanomsg library supports the following transports mechanisms: