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Amazon SNS vs IBM MQ 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 SNS
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
165
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) category, the mindshare of Amazon SNS is 6.7%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 28.7%, up from 24.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
 

Featured Reviews

Bireshwar Adhikary - PeerSpot reviewer
The best service available with easy message flow and a pay-as-you-go model
Messages easily flow from publisher or application to subscriber. You can also flow messages from publisher to SNS with an https-like mediator. Amazon SQS is there, so message queue services are also there. The message transports to the service provider such as Redshift, the SQ bucket, Teams, Splunk, or any other message service. The solution has no up-front costs. Messages flow much more quickly than in the past. They used to run a bit late after being published.
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 SNS has SMS notifications as well. Most of the other solutions have only email notifications."
"The initial setup of Amazon SNS was easy."
"It's a simple communication service that allows us to communicate with customers."
"The best aspect of this solution is its simplicity. We just have to create topics and can have as many subscriptions as we want under any topic we create."
"Messages easily flow from publisher or application to subscriber."
"Push notifications are the most valuable. I have mostly used push notifications for my system. Amazon SNS supports all devices for push notification services. It supports iOS, Android, and Windows notifications. It provides reliable push notification services. We have queues, and we can track which notifications have failed or had some issues. We can then figure out the issue. We can also debug the issue because of which our push notification didn't reach the end users."
"The integration between the features is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon SNS is speed. It's really fast."
"It is very robust and very scalable."
"I like the architecture it provides seamlessly for assured delivery."
"The most valuable feature of IBM MQ is transaction processing."
"Integrates between distributed systems: For example, it can help integrate processing between mainframe, client-server, web-based applications by integrating the messages, supporting Service Oriented Architecture."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"The thing that I like about MQ most is its reliability. It's one of those types of products that just works. You don't have to tinker around with it too much."
"It is stable, reliable, and scalable."
"We use queue managers/concentrators for message flow going upstream and downstream on applications with enterprise licenses."
 

Cons

"In future releases, I want to see if the platforms that SMS can reach. It would be a good way to improve it. More platforms to be able to use it."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to have better customer support for SNS. We can then manage it very easily."
"We would like the integration with third party applications to be improved within this solution."
"Messages should flow through a gateway without the need for a mediator."
"There needs to be more documentation on the integration with different platforms."
"I expect Amazon SNS to provide some capabilities to allow the configuration process to be done in a single script."
"We would like to have the option when someone leaves the organization or moves to another team, to remove notifications. Currently this needs to be done manually by the company admin."
"There could be more integration with other solutions."
"The issue is that they're using a very old clustering model."
"IBM MQ could improve capacity, monitoring, and automatization."
"The GUI part could be better."
"The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box."
"The user interface should be enhanced to include more monitoring features and other metrics. The metrics should include not only those from the IBM MQ point of view but also CPU and memory utilization."
"At a recent conference, I went to a presentation that had the latest version and it has amazing stuff that's coming out. So, I am excited to use those, specifically surrounding the web console and the fact that it's API integrated."
"In the next release, I would like for there to be easier monitoring. The UI should be easier for non-technical users to set up appliances and servers."
"The initial setup is difficult. Creating your own cluster is difficult. Working with cluster repositories is difficult. Issue management with IBM MQ is difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of push notifications and everything is quite fair. If you are using FCM under the hood, it is completely free. When you are using push notification on SMS, it is just a nominal price that you need to pay. SMS services are a lot more costly. It is because we don't have proper providers in India. That's why it gets a lot more costly in terms of SMS. This is the reason why we don't use SMS services from SNS itself. We use other third-party services like SMS Horizon. We use a third-party service for email services. It is almost free. It is just around $1 a month. Configuring Lambda is also quite cheap. You only pay for the Lambda usage. You don't pay for SNS itself."
"The pricing is very cheap."
"Their pricing is competitive. I would rate the cost four out of five."
"One can use the tool for free."
"Amazon SNS is cheap and I would rate it a three out of ten. The pricing is usage-based."
"It is the cheapest solution in the market. It is on a monthly basis. After a month, you are build based on your usage. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"The solution has no up-front costs because you pay based on the number of messages you publish."
"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."
"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 appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."
"There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Media Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon SNS?
The most valuable feature of Amazon SNS is speed. It's really fast.
What needs improvement with Amazon SNS?
In future releases, I want to see if the platforms that SMS can reach. It would be a good way to improve it. More platforms to be able to use it.
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

PlayOn! Sports, NASA, Change Healthcare, FCBarcelona
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.