MQTT broker integration vs Add-on. Whats the difference?

What is the difference between the MQTT broker integration and the Mosquitto broker add-on???

INTEGRATION:
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ADD-ON
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And if another integration/addon (zwave2mqtt for example) is saying it needs the mqtt username and password, where exactly would i setup a user and password? I tried setting up username/pw in the configuration tab of the addon, but that didnt seem to work.

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The Mosquito addon is the parent of all the mqtt operations. Only if you get it working you will be able to install the integration and use mqtt. The function of integration is help you use the mqtt addon. Towards this purpose, it is the integration that helps to add mqtt entities to home assistant which have been configured for auto discovery. Also the mqtt integration helps to publish and listen to mqtt topics. Even when we have a service to publish mqtt messages, it is only with the integration that we can listen to a topic. Just click on the configure tab in mqtt integration to see it.

If any other integration/addon asks for mqtt username and password, you have to give the login username and password in Mosquito addon configuration. Form the screen shot of configuration you shared, the username is test and password is testpw

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So the integration is not considered a broker, correct? The add-on is the broker.

Integration is not the broker. The mosquito addon is the broker. You will be able to do mqtt operations even if you dont have the integration provided the addon is working.

So I was so confused because the integration said Mosquitto broker. But thats just listing what broker its connected to. Duh!

well, the integration lists only the entities that have been connected to mqtt broker with auto discovery. Besides auto discovery you can also configure devices in the configuration.yaml which gives more options.

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