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Amazon MQ vs IBM MQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

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
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of Amazon MQ is 3.2%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 24.7%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"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."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"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 secure solution."
"RabbitMQ and Kafka require more steps for setup than IBM MQ. Installation of the IBM product is very simple."
"The usability of the solution is very good."
"What is quite useful is the asynchronous function which means we don't lose everything in the bank. Although we use a lot of things synchronously, asynch is the best thing so that no banking information is ever lost, even when the network goes down and comes up."
"It is easy to create a new queue, and the queue manager connecting to the remote queue works smoothly once the IP and port are included."
"Offers good performance as well as scalability and stability."
"Has helped integrate between applications, reduce rework, and costs by reusing working components of existing applications."
"It's ability to scale, it's ability to do guaranteed delivery and it's ability to do point-to-point of what we subscribe are the most valuable features."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product should improve its monitoring capabilities. It needs to improve the pricing also."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"Amazon MQ isn't a cheap tool."
"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"The solution needs improvement in the back end and security."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"SonicMQ CAA (continuous availability architecture) functionality on auto failover and data persistence should be made available without a shared drive, as it exists in multi-instance queue managers."
"The main issue we are having with the solution is due to the connection dropouts which have been going on for a long time now."
"The solution should offer a freeware version, free vouchers, or certifications for learning purposes and building knowledge base."
"They need to add the ability to send full messages (header + payload) from the MQ Explorer program, not just the payload."
"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."
"The clustering capabilities have provided some difficulties when it comes to resiliency. This has been a challenge for managing the environment."
"In IBM MQ, the channel connection is an area where my company faces some limitations. At times, we hit limitations on the connection, meaning the connection is fully occupied."
"The pricing needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"The price is high."
"You have to license per application installation and if you expand vertically or horizontally, you will be paying for more licenses. The licenses are approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a license, it can get expensive quite quickly."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
"The fee for this solution is on the higher end of the scale."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"I think the pricing is reasonable, especially with IIB as a part of it."
"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
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 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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MQ vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.