ActiveMQ vs Apache Kafka vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions comparison

The compared ActiveMQ and Apache Kafka solutions aren't in the same category. ActiveMQ is ranked #2 in MQ , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 26.5% mindshare in the category. Apache Kafka is ranked #8 in SA , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of ActiveMQ users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Apache Kafka users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 26 ActiveMQ reviews

6,942 Views
4,318 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Apache Kafka

Read 87 Apache Kafka reviews

978 Views
737 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Read 83 VMware Tanzu Data Solutions reviews

2,291 Views
1,853 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

Apache Kafka

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka, and VMware Tanzu Data Solutions based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Apache, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Message Queue (MQ) Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Message Queue (MQ) Software Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Streaming Analytics

Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Sharma

Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

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.

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Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Data streaming transforms real-time data movement with impressive scalability

I worked with Apache Kafka for customers in the financial industry and OTT platforms. They use Kafka particularly for data streaming. Companies offering movie and entertainment as a service, similar to Netflix, use Kafka Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming. It allows the use of data in…

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Sushma Polavarapu

Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini

Create essential reporting scripts with simplicity but has some operational challenges

We mainly create functions and scripts required for reporting The product is not complex; I do not have to create stored procedures, functions, or views. It's just simple to use. There is general room for improvement. I have been using it for five years. I have faced stability issues, mainly…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the holding and forwarding."

"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."

"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 ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."

"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."

"I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great."

"It provides the best support services."

More ActiveMQ pros

"It seemed pretty stable and didn't have any issues at all."

"When comparing it with other messaging and integration platforms, this is one of the best rated."

"The open-source version is relatively straightforward to set up and only takes a few minutes."

"Ease of use."

"It's an open-source product, which means it doesn't cost us anything to use it."

"The use of Kafka's logging mechanism has been extremely beneficial for us, as it allows us to sequence messages, track pointers, and manage memory without having to create multiple copies."

"I have seen a return on investment with this solution."

"Kafka is scalable to any degree we want, and it has several connectors available for integration in multiple languages, making it easier for integration."

More Apache Kafka pros

"The most valuable feature is that it's really customizable."

"The product's feature of data transaction works fast."

"The product's reliability is the most valuable feature."

"Pivotal Greenplum's shared-nothing architecture."

"The loading speed is very good."

"Reliability for the messages is key. RabbitMQ ensures your messages are safe. They are not deleted and stuff."

"Very fast for query processing."

"The solution's best feature is its exceptional speed, delivering efficient utilization of resources."

Cons

"Distributed message processing would be a nice addition."

"The clustering for sure needs improvement. When we were using it, the only thing available was an active/passive relationship that had to be maintained via shared file storage. That model includes a single point of failure in that storage medium."

"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."

"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."

"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."

"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"

"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."

"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."

More ActiveMQ cons

"Prioritization of messages in Apache Kafka could improve."

"One of the things I am mostly looking for is that once the message is picked up from Kafka, it should not be visible or able to be consumed by other applications, or something along those lines. That feature is not present, but it is not a limitation or anything of the sort; rather, it is a desirable feature. The next release should include a feature that prevents messages from being consumed by other applications once they are picked up by Kafka."

"Too much dependency on the zookeeper and leader selection is still the bottleneck for Kafka implementation."

"In the data sharing space, the performance of Apache Kafka could be improved. The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds."

"The solution should be easier to manage. It needs to improve its visualization feature in the next release."

"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."

"It’s a trial-and-error process with no one-size-fits-all solution. Issues may arise until it’s appropriately tuned."

"Apache Kafka has performance issues that cause it to lag."

More Apache Kafka cons

"It doesn't have any GUI-based monitoring tools."

"I would like to see the performance of the administration portal improved and additional messaging protocols."

"The product has to improve the crisis management, especially in memory issues."

"The initial deployment was a little difficult."

"The support feature could benefit from some improvement in terms of accessibility and responsiveness."

"Lacks sufficient inbuilt machine-learning functions for complex use cases."

"The next release should include some of the flexibility and features that Kafka offers."

"We needed to configure additional plugins. While it was relatively easy to do this on-premises, it became more challenging in the cloud."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s open source, ergo free."

"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."

"We use the open-source version."

"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."

"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."

"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."

"There are no fees because it is open-source."

"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."

"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."

"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."

"I rate Apache Kafka's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing fees for Apache Kafka."

"I was using the product's free version."

"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."

"Apache Kafka is open-source and can be used free of charge."

"It is approximately $600,000 USD."

More Apache Kafka pricing and cost advice

"It is the best product with best fit for price/performance customer objectives."

"It is an open-source product."

"We are using the open-source version of this solution."

"are using the open-source version, which can be used free of cost."

"Since the tool is an open-source product, there is no need to pay anything."

"It is an open-source platform. Although, we have to pay for additional features."

"Pricing is good compared to other products. It's fine."

"On a scale of one to five, with five being the most competitive pricing, I would rate this solution as a four."

More VMware Tanzu Data Solutions pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

34%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ActiveMQ?

We need to address the non-deterministic load issues. Sometimes, ActiveMQ either restarts automatically or goes into ...

See all answers

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 service...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Apache Kafka?

Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?

Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.

See all answers

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, si...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Greenplum?

The loading speed is very good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Greenplum?

It’s an open-source solution. There are no expenses for using it.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM MQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 53% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 16% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ

Compared 5% of the time

EMQX vs ActiveMQ

Compared 3% of the time

More ActiveMQ Competitors

Amazon SQS vs Apache Kafka

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs Apache Kafka

Compared 15% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Apache Kafka

Compared 14% of the time

IBM MQ vs Apache Kafka

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon MQ vs Apache Kafka

Compared 2% of the time

More Apache Kafka Competitors

IBM MQ vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Compared 19% of the time

Oracle Exadata vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix Database Service vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Compared 8% of the time

Snowflake vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Data Solutions Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

April 2025

Download ActiveMQ product report

Buyer's Guide

Apache Kafka

April 2025

Download Apache Kafka product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions

March 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Data Solutions product report

Also Known As

AMQ

No data available

Greenplum, Pivotal Greenplum, VMware RabbitMQ, VMware Tanzu GemFire, VMware Postgres

Overview

Apache ActiveMQ is the most popular and powerful open source messaging and Integration Patterns server.

Apache ActiveMQ is fast, supports many Cross Language Clients and Protocols, comes with easy to use Enterprise Integration Patterns and many advanced features while fully supporting JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4. Apache ActiveMQ is released under the Apache 2.0 License

Apache

Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed streaming platform that serves as a central hub for handling real-time data streams. It allows efficient publishing, subscribing, and processing of data from various sources like applications, servers, and sensors.

Kafka's core benefits include high scalability for big data pipelines, fault tolerance ensuring continuous operation despite node failures, low latency for real-time applications, and decoupling of data producers from consumers.

Key features include topics for organizing data streams, producers for publishing data, consumers for subscribing to data, brokers for managing clusters, and connectors for easy integration with various data sources.

Large organizations use Kafka for real-time analytics, log aggregation, fraud detection, IoT data processing, and facilitating communication between microservices.

Apache

VMware Tanzu is a robust platform tailored for data warehousing, complex analytics, BI applications, and predictive analytics. It excels in scalability, performance, and parallel processing, enhancing data handling efficiency. Users report significant productivity improvements and streamlined operations, making it ideal for comprehensive data solutions.

VMware

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc.

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest

General Electric, Conversant, China CITIC Bank, Aridhia, Purdue University

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

March 2025

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