NATS Message Deduplication in Go
Published: 2023-04-29 00:32:47

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title: NATS Message Deduplication in Go
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description: natsdedup: A Message Deduplication Solution for NATS written in Go
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# published_at: 2023-04-28 23:45 +0000
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**Summary** / TL;DR

`natsdedup` is a simple and efficient message deduplication solution for NATS-based applications, focusing on content-based deduplication.

It offers easy integration, configurable deduplication TTL, and in-memory caching. 

Check out the GitHub repository to get started and contribute to its growth.

**Repository**: [github.com/claudiunicolaa/natsdedup](https://github.com/claudiunicolaa/natsdedup)

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Today, I would like to introduce you to `natsdedup`, a lightweight package for deduplicating messages on NATS subjects. This package comes in handy for users who are not utilizing NATS JetStream and its [built-in deduplication feature](https://nats.io/blog/new-per-subject-discard-policy/).

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n9j2hi1hu60okvodp9vu.png)


The `natsdedup` package aims to enhance the efficiency and reliability of your NATS-based applications by offering a simple yet effective message deduplication solution. It listens to messages on a specified input subject, deduplicates them using a configurable time-to-live (TTL) cache, and forwards unique messages to a specified output subject.

An interesting aspect of `natsdedup` is that it focuses on deduplicating messages based on their content rather than their ID headers, unlike the built-in deduplication capabilities in NATS JetStream. This makes `natsdedup` a suitable alternative for scenarios where content-based deduplication is desired.

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Let's dive into some key features of the `natsdedup` package:

1. **Easy Integration**: `natsdedup` is designed to be easily integrated into your existing NATS-based applications. Just create a new instance of the Deduplicator struct, configure it with the input and output subjects, and run the deduplication process.

2. **Configurable Deduplication**: The package allows you to set a custom deduplication time-to-live (TTL) value, giving you control over how long messages should be considered for deduplication.

3. **In-Memory Caching**: The current implementation uses an in-memory cache for temporarily storing messages and efficiently deduplicating them. This ensures low-latency processing and minimal overhead.

4. **Concurrency Control**: The package employs concurrency control mechanisms like mutexes to ensure thread-safe access to the shared message cache.

5. **Extensibility**: `natsdedup` has been designed with extensibility in mind. As the project evolves, there are plans to explore and implement more advanced caching strategies, such as disk-based caching, distributed caching, and support for popular caching systems like Redis or Memcached.


To get started with `natsdedup`, head over to the GitHub [repository](https://github.com/claudiunicolaa/`natsdedup`), where you will find usage examples, and the source code. Contributions are welcome, whether it's adding new features, improving existing ones, or providing feedback to help make this package even better.

In conclusion, `natsdedup` is a valuable addition to the NATS ecosystem, providing a straightforward message deduplication solution for applications that do not rely on NATS JetStream. Give it a try and see how it can improve the performance and reliability of your NATS-based projects.


**Repository**: [github.com/claudiunicolaa/natsdedup](https://github.com/claudiunicolaa/natsdedup)