ActiveMQ vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

Apache and Salesforce are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Salesforce is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Apache holds a 22.4% mindshare in MQ, compared to Salesforce’s 7.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 28 ActiveMQ reviews

4,388 Views
4,169 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Read 60 MuleSoft Anypoint Platform reviews

10,546 Views
1,476 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and ActiveMQ compete in the API management and messaging categories, respectively. While MuleSoft offers a comprehensive suite suitable for complex settings, ActiveMQ's simplicity and affordability provide an advantage for smaller-scale operations.

Features: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers a unified API management platform with over 200 connectors and the ability to visually configure integrations, making it highly adaptable for different organizational needs. ActiveMQ, an open-source messaging solution, is known for its lightweight nature, affordability, and support for multiple protocols like JMS, AMQP, and MQTT, ideal for small applications requiring reliable messaging systems.

Room for Improvement: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform faces high pricing and complex setup challenges, with users seeking better integration flexibility and user-friendly documentation. ActiveMQ needs enhancements in advanced clustering, stability, and documentation for complex scenarios. Both products can improve in areas of customization and community support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: MuleSoft provides flexible deployment options in public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, with structured support tiers. ActiveMQ focuses on easy deployment, particularly on-premises, and provides community-driven support, which may lead to longer resolution times for complex issues.

Pricing and ROI: MuleSoft's pricing is high but offers significant ROI for enterprises due to reduced maintenance efforts and API-led microservices capabilities. ActiveMQ is cost-effective as an open-source tool with no licensing fees, appealing to budget-conscious users seeking reliable messaging solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveMQ vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

February 2026

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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

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (4th), Cloud Data Integration (4th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 22.4%, down from 25.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 7.3%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ActiveMQ	22.4%
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	7.3%
Other	70.3%

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Featured Reviews

MoumitaDas

Software Engineer III at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Integration capabilities enhance message handling without human interaction

With ActiveMQ there should be more options. If you work with other technologies, for example, Java, there are many options. We can integrate the way we want ActiveMQ. We can create partitions and clusters, but AP is not providing such options currently. It only provides time, request response timing, the number of requests that need to be handled, and protocol types. The configuration needs to be broadened inside AP to perform in a better way. Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks. The configuration aspect is tricky. When configurations are proper, ActiveMQ almost has zero errors.

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Greg O

Senior Validation Engineer at Weir Group PLC

Integration workflows have become transparent and secure while error tracking is streamlined

The best features in MuleSoft Anypoint Platform for me are transparency between logging in or deploying and using different environments. Managing different environments for the transparency of error logins or how to trace traceability is very important. It's very easy to use and sort, so you can see where everything has gone right and everything has gone wrong. I'm aware of the drag-and-drop interface in MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, and it's very, very quick. It's very time-saving and very efficient. The security features on MuleSoft Anypoint Platform help maintain data integrity in my organization; I would say it's second to none. It's one of the best out there that I have worked with because of the encryption and decryption, and there are a lot of security aspects. I would assess the platform's data mapping and transformation capabilities as amazing. Automation has been straightforward; the transformation and mapping have been easy to use, easy to source, and from the source to the target. I would say it has been very good.

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

"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."

"It provides the best support services."

"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."

"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 is very lightweight and quick."

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

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

"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

"It's easy to use and comes as a bundle package with the Anypoint Platform, removing the need for any complex setup."

"The product’s ability to seamlessly translate protocols is great."

"The community manager is the standout feature of the Mule Anypoint Platform, as it provides a platform to showcase your API to external parties. It is exceptionally user-friendly and enables external parties to easily utilize and consume the APIs."

"The most valuable feature for me is the Exchange sub-tool."

"The most valuable feature is their integrations and very good API management."

"The solution's deployment and proxy processes are very good."

"The tool’s API management capabilities are excellent."

"Good interface, simple to use and stable."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"Distributed message processing would be a nice addition."

"Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks."

"AI capabilities require improvement in future updates."

"There are some stability issues."

More ActiveMQ cons

"The pricing can be a little bit less."

"The terms of use and how it's priced has become very difficult to manage, which is forcing us to look for alternatives already - and we haven't even been using it for that long just yet."

"The solution's licensing model is expensive and could be improved."

"It doesn't work well when you try using it for the processing layer."

"The initial setup should be made easy and the documentation should have some guidance."

"The inclusion of GenAI in the tool can be good since it is an area that is currently unavailable in the solution."

"We would like an entire DevOps in place in this particular solution."

"MuleSoft's release calendar is rather conventional with two major, two minor releases and hotfixes in between. The competition sometimes offer more rapid release cycles and provides improved and new functionality with a faster time-to-market."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"It’s open source, ergo free."

"We use the open-source version."

"I think the software is free."

"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."

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

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

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

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing as four or five out of ten."

"Making changes in Anypoint MQ is expensive."

"The product's price seems to be competent in comparison to other products in the market."

"Licensing can be complex as is the case with most iPaaS/cloud offerings."

"The solution's pricing, as per the old approach, is expensive."

"The tool's pricing is cheaper than other RPAs' since it is execution-based. Other RPAs charge based on subscriptions."

"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"Mule Anypoint Platform is an expensive solution."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

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	22
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	30

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 advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?

I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...

See all answers

How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...

See all answers

What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?

This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

January 2026

Download ActiveMQ product report

Buyer's Guide

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

January 2026

Download MuleSoft Anypoint Platform product report

Also Known As

AMQ

Data Integrator, Anypoint 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

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform provides API management and integration capabilities with scalability, ensuring seamless connectivity across systems.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers API management and integration capabilities within a user-friendly interface. With a range of connectors and the ability to handle integration patterns, it enables data integration across environments with support for API-led connectivity. High scalability, observability, batch processing, and tooling are key features, enhancing performance while simplifying deployment.

What are the standout features of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform?

API Management: Comprehensive tools for managing APIs effectively.
Integration Capabilities: Facilitates diverse integration patterns.
Connectors: Extensive library for connecting various systems.
Observability: Enhances monitoring and performance tracking.
Batch Processing: Manages large volumes of data efficiently.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Scalability: Adaptable to growing data demands across platforms.
Performance: Simplifies complex deployments and improves processing.
Flexibility: Supports multiple environments, from cloud to on-premises.
User-Friendly: Streamlines integration processes with robust tools.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is employed by organizations for API management and seamless integration across systems in industries like retail and e-commerce. It connects enterprise applications in environments such as SAP and Salesforce. Users leverage it for data transformation and synchronization, achieving efficient real-time processing and a middleware layer across systems.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

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

VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

February 2026

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