A Comprehensive Review on IoT Marketplace Matchmaking: Approaches, Opportunities and Challenges

Service discovery matchmaking plays a vital role in the cyber marketplace for the Internet of Things (IoT), especially in peer-to-peer environments where buyers and sellers dynamically register and match resource profiles online. As the IoT marketplace expands, efficient resource allocation through matchmaking is increasingly important. However, the growing complexity of service discovery, coupled with data security and privacy challenges, complicates the identification of suitable services. To address these issues, this study conducts a comprehensive review of matchmaking algorithms within the IoT marketplace by examining their key attributes, strengths, and limitations as documented in academic literature. This paper categorises and summarises state-of-the-art approaches, identifying research gaps and proposing future directions. Our comparative analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of current methodologies, advocating for deep learning and context-aware solutions to improve service efficiency. Additionally, blockchain-based approaches are discussed for their potential to improve security, trust, and privacy-preserving transactions. This research lays a critical foundation for the advancement of secure, efficient IoT-enabled marketplaces.