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Amazon MQ vs Apache Kafka comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Amazon MQ
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (8th)
Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Amazon MQ and Apache Kafka aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Amazon MQ is designed for Message Queue (MQ) Software and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 5.6% compared to last year.
Apache Kafka, on the other hand, focuses on Streaming Analytics, holds 2.5% mindshare, up 2.0% since last year.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

David Onuh - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides you with a URL where you can either send or retrieve messages
For messaging, we use SQL queues, not MQ queues. When a request comes into our front-end application, we put this message into a queue. The right service picks up a particular message from the queue, performs the operation, and calls the next service. The next service taking that message can either perform services on the message or attach it to a new queue from multiple services. It's as if we have multiple services working hand-in-hand, but we use a queue system to either get or send messages. I only use Amazon MQ for one specific thing. I wouldn't say I've used it extensively to know what is more beneficial. We use the solution to pick out matrices from a particular queue, process the queue, and process the messages they push into something else. It was really fast. One of the good things I love about the solution is that you hardly get two services working on one message. When a subscriber to a queue consumes their message, it's in the queue at a particular moment. All the messages are only visible to the particular subscriber. Suppose ten services are trying to get a message from the queue. Out of the ten, if five pick the same messages, you will get duplicate transactions and weird errors. It does a very good job abstracting that for you, so you don't have to write the logic. Amazon MQ has done all that it was supposed to do. Most of the issues boil down to a skill or a pricing issue. Overall, I rate Amazon MQ ten out of ten.
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"Amazon MQ is a secure solution."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its managed service aspect. It's simple to implement and use. It requires minimal effort to maintain business operations."
"Amazon MQ is important for being collaborative, allowing for centralized information."
"Amazon MQ is managed by AWS and is easy to use."
"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"The most valuable features are the stream API, consumer groups, and the way that the scaling takes place."
"The high availability is valuable. It is robust, and we can rely on it for a huge amount of data."
"Resiliency is great and also the fact that it handles different data formats."
"I use it for real-time processing workloads. So, in some instances, it's like IoT data. We need to put it into a data lake."
"The publisher-subscriber pattern and low latency are also essential features that greatly piqued my interest."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is the clustering which is very easy to scale and we have multiple servers all over our platforms. It has been useful for stability and performance."
"Deployment is speedy."
"The most valuable features of the solution revolve around areas like the latency part, where the tool offers very little latency and the sequencing part."
 

Cons

"The solution needs improvement in the back end and security."
"The product should improve its monitoring capabilities. It needs to improve the pricing also."
"Amazon MQ is a good solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. It's open-source software, which means it's cheaper than its competitors."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"Amazon MQ isn't a cheap tool."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"More adapters for connecting to different systems need to be available."
"Confluent has improved aspects like documentation and cloud support, yet Kafka's reliance on older architectures like ZooKeeper in previous versions is a limitation."
"Apache Kafka can improve by adding a feature out of the box which allows it to deliver only one message."
"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."
"Kafka 2.0 has been released for over a month, and I wanted to try out the new features. However, the configuration is a little bit complicated: Kafka Broker, Kafka Manager, ZooKeeper Servers, etc."
"An area for improvement would be growth."
"In the data sharing space, the performance of Apache Kafka could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"It is open source software."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"I was using the product's free version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon MQ?
The tool's most valuable feature is its managed service aspect. It's simple to implement and use. It requires minimal effort to maintain business operations.
What needs improvement with Amazon MQ?
The message queue requires an improvement in the message template MQ link. If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great.
What is your primary use case for Amazon MQ?
We are using Amazon MQ for our AI model. It's used for notifications and other services. We have an application for which Amazon MQ acts as a broker.
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...
What do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MQ vs. Apache Kafka and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.