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ActiveMQ pros and cons

Vendor: Apache
3.9 out of 5
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1,103 followers
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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

ActiveMQ efficiently integrates with JVM-related languages and JMS, excelling in reliable message delivery and providing extensive protocol support like MQTT and AMQP.
It facilitates asynchronous communication as a JMS broker and offers features such as queue, topic, and durable topics with selectors.
The tool is lightweight, quick, and ideal for small applications, with straightforward initial setup and low latency.
ActiveMQ is praised for its vibrant community support, ensuring prompt message delivery and handling large data volumes with low latency.
It handles message transfer within internal networks and from internal to cloud, accommodating real-time data transfer and periodic updates.

CONS

ActiveMQ message management needs better handling, such as message persistence or lifecycle options.
Scalability is a challenge with complex setups, particularly with mirror queues.
Clustering improvements are necessary, as current methods present a single point of failure.
Documentation and protocol support require enhancements for user effectiveness.
Stability is an issue, often requiring system restarts and setup complexity reduction.
 

ActiveMQ Pros review quotes

GT
Sep 16, 2022
The most valuable feature of this solution is the holding and forwarding.
Jodi Setiyawan - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2024
The main function I find valuable in ActiveMQ is facilitating message transfer within the client's internal network. ActiveMQ handles the message transfer from the internal network to the cloud. Regarding multi-protocols, we use different approaches based on client capabilities. Some clients connect for real-time data transfer, using database queries for periodic updates every ten minutes. We collect data from multiple clients, ensuring we get real-time sensor values where possible and periodic updates for others.
ME
Feb 2, 2020
I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great.
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Eyob Alemu - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 2, 2024
We value ActiveMQ for its performance, throughput, and low latency, especially in handling large volumes of data and sequential management of topics.
it_user660048 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 7, 2017
I appreciate many features including queue, topic, durable topic, and selectors. I also value a different support for different protocols such as MQTT and AMQP. It has full support for EIP, REST, Message Groups, UDP, and TCP.
ShoaibKhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 30, 2022
ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick.
it_user651429 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 24, 2017
The most important feature is that it's best for JVM-related languages and JMS integration.
Andrea Castorino - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 28, 2024
For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery.
NK
Nov 9, 2022
The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes.
RG
Mar 8, 2024
There is a vibrant community, and it is one of the strongest points of this product. We always get answers to our problems. So, my experience with the community support has been good.
 

ActiveMQ Cons review quotes

GT
Sep 16, 2022
It would be great if it is included as part of the solution, as Kafka is doing. Even though the use case of Kafka is different, If something like data extraction is possible, or if we can experiment with partition tolerance and other such things, that will be great.
Jodi Setiyawan - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2024
For additional functionality, I suggest making it easier to install and monitor the queues, topics, broker status, publisher status, and consumer status. Improved monitoring tools would help avoid needing to manually access the server for monitoring purposes.
ME
Feb 2, 2020
This solution could improve by providing better documentation.
Learn what your peers think about ActiveMQ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Eyob Alemu - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 2, 2024
We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities.
it_user660048 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 7, 2017
Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers.
ShoaibKhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 30, 2022
From the TPS point of view, it's like 100,000 transactions that need to be admitted from different devices and also from the different minor small systems. Those are best fit for Kafka. We have used it on the customer side, and we thought of giving a try to ActiveMQ, but we have to do a lot of performance tests and approval is required before we can use it for this scale.
it_user651429 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 24, 2017
Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle.
Andrea Castorino - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 28, 2024
One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup.
NK
Nov 9, 2022
The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer.
RG
Mar 8, 2024
The UI. It's both a good thing and a bad thing. The UI is too simple. Sometimes you wanna see the messages coming to the queue, and you have to refresh the dashboard, the console of the product.