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

ActiveMQ vs IBM MQ comparison

Apache and IBM are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Apache holds a 31.8% mindshare in MQ, compared to IBM’s 29.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of IBM users who would recommend it.
ActiveMQ
Read 26 ActiveMQ reviews
  • 8,024 Views
  • 4,798 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
IBM MQ
Read 163 IBM MQ reviews
  • 7,032 Views
  • 4,674 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

IBM MQ and ActiveMQ provide competitive and reliable messaging solutions. While IBM MQ appears to have an advantage in reliability and enterprise-level support, ActiveMQ's strengths lie in flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Features: IBM MQ offers exceptional reliability, seamless integration with IBM products, and robust performance. ActiveMQ provides versatility with its open-source nature, flexible feature set, and strong adaptability, allowing for extensive customization.

Room for Improvement: IBM MQ can improve with faster updates, better speed, and enhanced agility. ActiveMQ needs more comprehensive documentation, improved support, and increased stability during rapid changes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM MQ is known for structured deployment and high-quality customer service, ensuring reliable assistance. ActiveMQ offers an easier installation process, though its customer service could benefit from increased responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: IBM MQ involves higher initial costs but delivers a strong ROI through reliability and service. ActiveMQ is more budget-friendly initially and maximizes ROI in adaptable, cost-sensitive environments.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
To learn more, read our detailed ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ Report (Updated: December 2024).
Buyer's Guide
ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ
December 2024
Download the complete report
Helped 825,399 peers since 2012
 

Categories and Ranking

ActiveMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 31.8%, up from 25.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 29.8%, up from 26.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 13, 2019
What Is The Biggest Difference Between ActiveMQ and IBM MQ?
ActiveMQ offers very high throughput and low latency compared to IBM MQ. ActiveMQ supports standard messaging protocols like AMQP, STOMP, MQTT etc whereas IBM MQ just comply with JMS and its own protocol. IBM MQ Light supports AMQP though. IBM MQ is much preferred in enterprise environment, probably due to the support. Redhat AMQ offers enterprise support on ActiveMQ. AFAIK documentation wise, they are at par. Both support clustering. But only in ActiveMQ real storage of messages in another broker which is less loaded happens. IBM MQ just enables communication between Queue managers. But I would prefer to put a few more options on the table. 1. RabbitMQ - fully compliant with protocols, supports replication and distribution of messages, throughput in tens of thousands 2. Redis - Light weight single threaded server. Supports pub sub messaging and supports HA via sentinel and clustering for distributed messaging 3. Kafka - Preferred mechanism for data streaming. Throughput in millions. 4. ZeroMQ - Brokerless messaging platform. Very high throughput. 5. NanoMsg - Brokerless. Claims to be advanced than ZeroMQ
See all answers
 

Featured Reviews

Eyob Alemu - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data flow management with high performance and occasional stability improvements
For high traffic volumes where management time on ActiveMQ is minimal and where the rate of flow from the provider is slower than from the consumer, ActiveMQ offers the highest performance based on our experience. It has been efficient for data flow control between two endpoints, despite occasional unexpected glitches. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Read full review
SelvaKumar4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to batch metadata transfers between systems that support MQ as the communication method
We find it scalable for internal applications, but not so much for external integrations. It should support a wider range of protocols, not just a few specific ones. Many other products have broader protocol support, and IBM MQ is lagging in that area. IBM MQ needs to improve the UI for quicker logging. Users should also have a lot more control over logging, with a dashboard-like interface. That's something they should definitely work on.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"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."
"I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great."
"We value ActiveMQ for its performance, throughput, and low latency, especially in handling large volumes of data and sequential management of topics."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the holding and forwarding."
More ActiveMQ pros
"It runs everywhere, from the mainframe in the US to the PCs in the Gobi desert attached to an analog modem."
"Combined with IBM MQ, this product is our primary data store."
"Currently, we are not using many advanced features. We are only using point-to-point MQ. I have previously used features like context-based authentication, SSL authentication, and high availability. These are good and pretty cool features. They make your business reliable. For critical business needs, everyone uses only IBM MQ. It is the first choice because of its reliability. There is a one-send-and-one-delivery feature. It also has a no-message-loss feature, and because of that, only IBM MQ is used in banking or financial sectors."
"The solution is very stable."
"IBM MQ is the right choice because of the stability and the performance. And from the support perspective, it's enough to have a really small team."
"IBM MQ is robust compared to other products in the market. It also gives you support from the IBM team."
"The solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."
"Encryption and the fact that we have not had any data loss issues so far have been very valuable features. IBM MQ is well encrypted so that we are well within our compliance and regulatory requirements, so that is a plus point as well."
More IBM MQ pros
 

Cons

"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."
"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."
"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."
"This solution could improve by providing better documentation."
"There are some stability issues."
"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."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"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."
More ActiveMQ cons
"Sometimes, not all messages are consumed in the queues. File transfers need improvement."
"IBM MQ is not very user-friendly."
"Everything in the solution could be simplified a little. We have trouble with the configuration and cost which is mostly an internal issue, but nevertheless, the errors do come up when there are configuration changes across a specific version. We have slightly different versions, which may have slightly different configurations which cause issues."
"I have used the support from IBM MQ. There is some room for improvement."
"The GUI part could be better."
"IBM MQ's pricing is higher than its competitors'."
"Customer support response times could be improved."
"The initial setup is difficult. Creating your own cluster is difficult. Working with cluster repositories is difficult. Issue management with IBM MQ is difficult."
More IBM MQ cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"We use the open-source version."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"I think the software is free."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice
"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."
"It's a very expensive product."
"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"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."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
More IBM MQ pricing and cost advice
report
See which vendors are best for you
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Message Queue (MQ) Software solutions are best for your needs.
See recommendations
825,399 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 13, 2019
Feb 13, 2019
What Is The Biggest Difference Between ActiveMQ and IBM MQ?
ActiveMQ offers very high throughput and low latency compared to IBM MQ. ActiveMQ supports standard messaging protocols like AMQP, STOMP, MQTT etc whereas IBM MQ just comply with JMS and its own protocol. IBM MQ Light supports AMQP though. IBM MQ is much preferred in enterprise environment, probably due to the support. Redhat AMQ offers enterprise support on ActiveMQ. AFAIK documentation wise,...
See 2 answers
JA
Feb 12, 2019
From my Experience so far i will go for RabbitMQ its rock solid and robust with a simple learning curve. Its free and has great documentation available
Read full answer
WJ
Feb 13, 2019
ActiveMQ offers very high throughput and low latency compared to IBM MQ. ActiveMQ supports standard messaging protocols like AMQP, STOMP, MQTT etc whereas IBM MQ just comply with JMS and its own protocol. IBM MQ Light supports AMQP though. IBM MQ is much preferred in enterprise environment, probably due to the support. Redhat AMQ offers enterprise support on ActiveMQ. AFAIK documentation wise, they are at par. Both support clustering. But only in ActiveMQ real storage of messages in another broker which is less loaded happens. IBM MQ just enables communication between Queue managers. But I would prefer to put a few more options on the table. 1. RabbitMQ - fully compliant with protocols, supports replication and distribution of messages, throughput in tens of thousands 2. Redis - Light weight single threaded server. Supports pub sub messaging and supports HA via sentinel and clustering for distributed messaging 3. Kafka - Preferred mechanism for data streaming. Throughput in millions. 4. ZeroMQ - Brokerless messaging platform. Very high throughput. 5. NanoMsg - Brokerless. Claims to be advanced than ZeroMQ
Read full answer
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
 

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 ActiveMQ mode, causing interruptions. We need to enhance stability and improve t...
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 services interact with external services. These include an automatic biometric service ...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
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, simple to configure and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocol...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ Logo
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ
Compared 17% of the time
Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ Logo
Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ
Compared 12% of the time
Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ Logo
Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ
Compared 6% of the time
PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ Logo
PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ
Compared 5% of the time
Apache Kafka vs ActiveMQ Logo
Apache Kafka vs ActiveMQ
Compared 4% of the time
More ActiveMQ Competitors
Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ Logo
Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ
Compared 12% of the time
PubSub+ Platform vs IBM MQ Logo
PubSub+ Platform vs IBM MQ
Compared 8% of the time
Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ Logo
Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ
Compared 7% of the time
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM MQ Logo
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM MQ
Compared 7% of the time
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs IBM MQ Logo
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs IBM MQ
Compared 6% of the time
More IBM MQ Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
ActiveMQ
December 2024
ActiveMQ reportDownload ActiveMQ product report
Buyer's Guide
IBM MQ
December 2024
IBM MQ reportDownload IBM MQ product report
 

Also Known As

AMQ
WebSphere MQ
 

Learn More

Apache
IBM
 

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

    IBM MQ is a middleware product used to send or exchange messages across multiple platforms, including applications, systems, files, and services via MQs (messaging queues). This solution helps simplify the creation of business applications, and also makes them easier to maintain. IBM MQ is security-rich, has high performance, and provides a universal messaging backbone with robust connectivity. In addition, it also integrates easily with existing IT assets by using an SOA (service oriented architecture).

    IBM MQ can be deployed:

    • On-premises
    • In the cloud
    • Hybrid cloud

    IBM MQ supports the following APIs:

    • MQI (Message Queue Interface)
    • REST
    • .NET
    • MQTT
    • JMS
    • IBM MQ Light


    IBM MQ Features

    Some of the most powerful IBM MQ features include:

    • High availability
    • Stability and scalability
    • Flexible deployment options
    • Uniform clusters
    • Automated and intelligent workload balancing
    • Broad language, API, and messaging protocol support
    • Administrative features that simplify messaging management
    • Open standards development tools
    • Simple management tools

    IBM MQ Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using IBM MQ include:

    • Multi-style messaging: IBM MQ supports simple multi-style messaging, making it easy to connect diverse systems with support for message queuing, transactions, and more.

    • Reduced risk: With IBM MQ you will never lose a message, and messages are never delivered more than once.

    • Cloud-native: Because IBM MQ has a minimal infrastructure, it is suitable to be cloud-native, and therefore has the capability to always remain on.

    • Available anywhere: Using IBM MQ, you have access to secure messaging anywhere, at any time.

    • Secure: IBM MQ makes sure to keep your data safe by using TLS secured communications, providing access identity management, message-level security, and more measures to protect your information.

    • Easy for application programmers: To use IBM MQ, application programmers do not need to have any knowledge of communications programming.

    • Technical support: IBM MQ has a large user community and also provides support 24/7 as needed.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by IBM MQ users who are currently using the solution.

    PeerSpot user Sunil S., a manager at a financial services firm, explains that they never lose messages are never lost in transit, mentioning that he can store messages and forward them as required: "Whenever payments are happening, such as incoming payments to the bank, we need to notify the customer. With MQ we can actually do that asynchronously. We don't want to notify the customer for each and every payment but, rather, more like once a day. That kind of thing can be enabled with the help of MQ."

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, Luis L. who is a solutions director at Thesys Technologies, says that IBM MQ is a valuable solution and is "A stable and reliable software that offers good integration between different systems."

    The head of operations at a financial services firm notes that "I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, is easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."

    In addition, a Software Engineer at a financial services firm praises the security benefits of it and states that “it has the most security features I've seen in a communication solution. Security is the most important thing for our purposes."

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Buyer's Guide
ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ
December 2024
Free Report: ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
DOWNLOAD NOW
825,399 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See our ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ report.
See our list of best Message Queue (MQ) Software vendors.

We monitor all Message Queue (MQ) Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.