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ActiveMQ vs Amazon SQS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

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

ActiveMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon SQS
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 26.5%, up from 21.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon SQS is 8.5%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for asynchronous communication, enabling services to operate independently but issues with stability
The feature of ActiveMQ which I feel is good is its ability to have DLP, the later queues. If something goes wrong with the platform, it retries. Even if it fails, it goes to DLP, and later we can rescan the same event for processing. The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable.
Ariel Tarayants - PeerSpot reviewer
Powerful queue system facilitates seamless asynchronous operations
A feature I would like to see in Amazon SQS is the ability to view the content of messages without removing them from the queue. Enhanced filtering on the messages would be beneficial, as currently one has to pull all messages out, filter the right one by code, and then re-insert the remaining messages. This solution is not effective with the FIFO queue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the holding and forwarding."
"I am impressed with the tool’s latency. Also, the messages in ActiveMQ wait in a queue. The messages will start to move when the system reopens after getting stuck."
"The most important feature is that it's best for JVM-related languages and JMS integration."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"Message broadcasting: There could be a use case sending the same message to all consumers. So as a producer, I broadcast the message to a topic. Then, whichever consumers are subscribed to the topic can consume the same message."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"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."
"The scale it manages is quite impressive."
"It works consistently and is economical under a standard non-FIFO model."
"I am able to find out what's going on very easily."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon SQS is the interface."
"All Amazon Web Services resources are easy to configure."
"One of the useful features is the ability to schedule a call after a certain number of messages accumulate in the container. For example, if there are ten messages in the container, you can perform a specific action."
"The solution is easy to scale and cost-effective."
"It is stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to improve its installation part which is lengthy. The product is already working on that aspect so that the complete installation gets completed within a month."
"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."
"I would like the tool to improve compliance and stability. We will encounter issues while using the central applications. In the solution's future releases, I want to control and set limitations for databases."
"Distributed message processing would be a nice addition."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"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."
"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing, especially for the FIFO model."
"The initial setup of Amazon SQS is in the middle range of difficulty. You need to learn Amazon AWS and know how to navigate, create resources, and structures, and provide rules."
"There is room for improvement in handling large-scale data."
"The cost became an issue, leading us to consider other solutions."
"The tool needs improvement in user-friendliness and discoverability."
"It would be beneficial to have the ability to peek at messages currently in Amazon SQS without needing to monitor incoming messages."
"Sending or receiving messages takes some time, and it could be quicker."
"I cannot send a message to multiple people simultaneously. It can only be sent to one recipient."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"I think the software is free."
"We use the open-source version."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"Compared to EC2 and other services, Amazon SQS' pricing is cheaper."
"The pricing of Amazon SQS is reasonable. The first million requests are free every month, and after, it's cost 40 cents for every million requests. There are not any additional fees."
"Amazon SQS is moderately priced."
"Compared to the other options and based on what I have heard, Amazon SQS is relatively more expensive, but it is not insanely expensive."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-use. It depends on your usage and configuration."
"Amazon SQS is quite expensive and is at the highest price point compared to other solutions."
"SQS's pricing is very good - I would rate it nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveMQ?
For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery.
What needs improvement with ActiveMQ?
We need to address the non-deterministic load issues. Sometimes, ActiveMQ either restarts automatically or goes into ActiveMQ mode, causing interruptions. We need to enhance stability and improve t...
What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?
We have a digital ID platform that uses various services running on Kafka. There are two main endpoints where services interact with external services. These include an automatic biometric service ...
What needs improvement with Amazon SQS?
AWS provides another messaging service, which is fine for certain purposes. SQS meets the cloud messaging workload requirements. However, combining the features of both products could be an easier ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon SQS?
I primarily use SQL Server for messaging services, and I need to offer loose couplings. SQS is handy for offloading non-urgent tasks that can be reverted later. I use it as a queue management servi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
EMS, NASA, BMW, Capital One
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Amazon SQS and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.