Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM MQ vs TIBCO Enterprise Message Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 19.9%, down from 42.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 14.9%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ19.9%
TIBCO Enterprise Message Service14.9%
Other65.2%
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MK
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
Reliable payment processing is achieved with minimal disruption
Currently, we have some disadvantages; it's a bit difficult to use IBM ID to access support from the IBM site. To get nice support from IBM, we need to use IBM ID, and it's a bit complicated to integrate it with IBM support. Support can be better because sometimes we need explanations for some behaviors of the product, and it's not easy to reach the proper person in IBM support. They could add some new features into IBM MQ to make it better. A graphical user interface in addition to MQ Explorer could be useful, but we are satisfied with MQ Explorer as well.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Lead at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
A value-for-money solution with the requisite features to facilitate efficient communication within an organization
We have been struggling with the stability of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service (EMS), but now I don't know how to differentiate whether the issues are caused by the infrastructure or the product itself. So, I am hesitant to provide a rating because I suspect that it might be due to my setup or environment. I really don't know how to evaluate the product independently. We have faced challenges with EMS, but I am unsure if it is related to infrastructure or the product itself. Even if I reach out for support, I am uncertain if the issue will be resolved since it could be partly related to the product. It's a tough situation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Offers good performance as well as scalability and stability."
"This initial setup is not complex at all. Deploying it was very easy."
"The MQ protocol is widely used across multiple applications and it's so simple for connectivity."
"I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."
"Support for JMS 2.0, because we develop solutions compatible with Java EE7."
"It is very robust and very scalable."
"We have found the MQ messaging topologies valuable."
"This product has good security."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
 

Cons

"The integration capabilities could be even easier."
"I'm not really aware of how they help in this."
"We have had scalability issues with some projects in the past."
"More documentation would be good because some features are not deeply implemented."
"Customer support response times could be improved."
"The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM)."
"It needs a User Interface which is better than the aging MQ Explorer. The existing solution MQ Explorer is outdated."
"You should be able to increase the message size. It should be dynamic. Each queue has a limitation of 5,000."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for IBM MQ is commercial and not cheap. You get a multi-platform solution, which is important because it lets you connect systems on mainframes, personal solutions, Unix, Linux, etc."
"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price a seven. The product is expensive."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."
"​The cost of licensing is very high. One should go for the product only if they need to ensure message reliability and they cannot afford to lose messages.​"
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Activity Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
5%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise147
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is MQ software?
Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" solutions that have come into the market place. From my perspective, while each pro...
What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
How does IBM MQ compare with VMware RabbitMQ?
IBM MQ has a great reputation behind it, and this solution is very robust with great stability. It is easy to use, simple to configure and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocol...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Enterprise Message Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
BNL, SunGard, TUI Group, UTi Worldwide, Yellow Pages Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. TIBCO Enterprise Message Service and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.