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 8.5, while IBM is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Apache holds a 25.1% mindshare in MQ, compared to IBM’s 25.5% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 28 ActiveMQ reviews

5,398 Views
4,966 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM MQ

Read 172 IBM MQ reviews

6,471 Views
4,724 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

IBM MQ

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

IBM MQ and ActiveMQ compete in the enterprise messaging category, where IBM MQ appears to have the upper hand in terms of enterprise-scale features and robustness. However, ActiveMQ's open-source flexibility and cost-effectiveness offer significant advantages in smaller or more agile environments.

Features: IBM MQ is highly valued for its scalability, stability, and robust integration capabilities, especially in enterprises that demand guaranteed message delivery and strong security. It manages large data volumes across diverse platforms. ActiveMQ stands out for its open-source nature, ease of use, and multi-protocol support, particularly suited for containerized environments and applications requiring lightweight, asynchronous communication.

Room for Improvement: IBM MQ could benefit from enhanced management and alerting tools, better API and cloud service integration, and improved high availability and migration features. ActiveMQ users often report challenges with configuring cluster brokers and seek improvements in stability, scalability, and enriched UI and monitoring tools. Each has distinct technical focus areas in need of modernization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM MQ is used across various environments such as on-premises and hybrid clouds, with generally favorable support feedback, despite occasional delays. ActiveMQ is praised for its simplicity in deployment, especially in public cloud scenarios, offering good initial support though lacking the depth of enterprise-level support available with broader infrastructure organizations.

Pricing and ROI: IBM MQ's pricing is considered expensive due to CPU-based licensing fees, but this cost is often justified by its performance, reliability, and security in complex enterprise scenarios. In contrast, ActiveMQ provides significant cost advantages as an open-source solution, appealing to users focused on cost-effectiveness without sacrificing essential functionalities for smaller-scale or cloud-based applications.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ vs. IBM MQ

September 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:

Categories and Ranking

ActiveMQ

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

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

172

Ranking in other categories

Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 25.1%, up from 24.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.5%, up from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM MQ	25.5%
ActiveMQ	25.1%
Other	49.4%

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover

Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot

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

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Featured Reviews

Eyob Alemu

Technical Director at NIDP

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.

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David Pizinger

Enterprise Technical Leader at Kyndryl

Has faced unexpected VM restarts but continues to deliver messages reliably

I'm not sure if we've utilized IBM MQ's high availability. Our MQ VMs are set up in clusters, and I think our queue managers are set up in pairs. However, I don't know if we actually use any specific high availability features of IBM MQ that are out of the box. We have it architected with high availability because we use F5 load balancers, and everything about our architecture is highly available. I haven't personally used the management tools with IBM MQ, but we do have them, and our middleware folks leverage them. I can't really comment on them because I don't use them myself. I don't think the management tools help optimize message flows, and I'm not really aware of how they help in this. I'm not familiar with dynamic routing for IBM MQ.

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

"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."

"It provides the best support services."

"The initial setup and first deployment of ActiveMQ is fairly simple."

"ActiveMQ demonstrates excellent stability and sturdiness."

"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."

"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 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."

More ActiveMQ pros

"Support for JMS 2.0, because we develop solutions compatible with Java EE7."

"Reliability is the most valuable feature. MQ is used to support critical business applications."

"We use queue managers/concentrators for message flow going upstream and downstream on applications with enterprise licenses."

"The solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."

"IBM MQ processes many thousands of messages in a second, which is efficient for handling high transaction volumes."

"The most valuable feature is the interaction within the system."

"The feature I find most effective for ensuring message delivery without loss is the backup threshold. This feature allows for automatic retries of transactional messages within a specified threshold."

"Reliable messaging and throughput are the most valuable."

More IBM MQ pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."

"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."

"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."

"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."

More ActiveMQ cons

"In terms of volume, it is not able to handle a huge volume. We also have limitations of queues related to IBM MQ. We often need to handle a very big volume, but currently we do have limitations. If those kinds of limitations could be relaxed, it would help us to work better."

"Sometimes, not all messages are consumed in the queues. File transfers need improvement."

"I don’t like legacy view of MQ."

"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."

"IBM MQ could improve by adding more protocols or APIs for a standard application, such as MuleSoft."

"You should be able to increase the message size. It should be dynamic. Each queue has a limitation of 5,000."

"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."

"I believe the stability of the product has decreased since we began using it initially."

More IBM MQ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the software is free."

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

"We use the open-source version."

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

"It’s open source, ergo free."

"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."

"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."

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

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"The licensing fees are paid quarterly and they are expensive."

"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."

"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."

"Pricing could be better, as with all IBM products. But their performance in production, along with security and scalability, will pay returns in the long run."

"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."

"It is a licensed product. As compared to an open-source solution, such as RabbitMQ, it is obviously costly. If you're using IBM Message Broker, which is a licensed product, IBM MQ is included in the same license. You don't have to pay separately for IBM MQ. The license cost of IBM MQ is lesser than IBM Message Broker."

"The pricing needs improvement."

"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."

More IBM MQ pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover

Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot

Feb 13, 2019

What Is The Biggest Difference Between ActiveMQ and IBM MQ?

See 2 answers

Jack Angoe

Technical Lead at Interface Fintech Ltd

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

Winster Jose

Senior Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 13, 2019

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

35%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	146

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?

Pricing is something to consider with ActiveMQ, though cloud pricing is not costly and depends upon the compute selection. Focusing on AI is essential nowadays. AI capabilities require improvement ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?

In my current organization, I'm only working with ActiveMQ. I previously worked with IBM WebSphere MQ.

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

Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 20% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs ActiveMQ

Compared 3% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 3% of the time

More ActiveMQ Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs IBM MQ

Compared 6% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM MQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM MQ

October 2025

Download IBM MQ product report

Also Known As

AMQ

WebSphere MQ

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

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."

IBM

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

September 2025

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