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Amazon SQS 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 SQS
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
29
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
164
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of Amazon SQS is 8.5%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.6%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ariel Tarayants - PeerSpot reviewer
Powerful queue system facilitates seamless asynchronous operations
A feature I would like to see in Amazon SQS is the ability to view the content of messages without removing them from the queue. Enhanced filtering on the messages would be beneficial, as currently one has to pull all messages out, filter the right one by code, and then re-insert the remaining messages. This solution is not effective with the FIFO queue.
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

"We use SNS as the publisher, and our procurement service subscribes to those events using SQS. In the past, we relied on time-based or batch-based processes to send data between services on-premises. With SQS, we can trigger actions based on real-time changes in business processes, improving reliability."
"SQS is very stable, and it has lots of features."
"It works consistently and is economical under a standard non-FIFO model."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon SQS is the interface."
"I like how we can subscribe to multiple topics in Amazon SQS. It's also much simpler and quicker to set up than other solutions. It also supports patterns like Kafka and RapidMQ's fan-out pattern but with easier implementation."
"Amazon SQS provides faster search through indexing via OpenSearch."
"The most valuable features of the solution are AWS Lambda services, ECS, and QuickSight reports, which are beneficial for data analysis."
"I appreciate that Amazon SQS is fully integrated with Amazon and can be accessed through normal functions or serverless functions, making it very user-friendly. Additionally, the features are comparable to those of other solutions."
"RabbitMQ and Kafka require more steps for setup than IBM MQ. Installation of the IBM product is very simple."
"We have found the MQ messaging topologies valuable."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of IBM MQ is transaction processing."
"The most valuable features of IBM MQ are its guarantee of delivery, ability to handle high volume while maintaining high availability, and robust security measures such as SSL, TLS, and RBAC."
"The solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."
"It improves reliability and guarantees that messages are not lost."
"The usability of the solution is very good."
 

Cons

"The tool needs improvement in user-friendliness and discoverability."
"The search should be more user-friendly, allowing me to search for a longer period of time and return results faster."
"A feature I would like to see in Amazon SQS is the ability to view the content of messages without removing them from the queue."
"There is room for improvement by making use of Kafka services to create more flexible data streams."
"Sometimes, we have to switch to another component similar to SQS because the patching tool for SQS is relatively slow for us."
"The solution is not available on-premises so that rules out any customers looking for the messaging solution on-premises."
"The current visibility timeout of five minutes is okay. However, I'd like to explore the possibility of extending it for specific use cases."
"For Amazon SQS, in particular, I think AWS Management Console has shortcomings. AWS Management Console should be a better pluggable option to help users with some integrations."
"If they could come up with monitoring dashboards that would be good. We are using external monitoring tools, apart from our IBM MQ, to monitor IBM MQ. If we could get monitoring tools or dashboards to keep everything simple for the user to understand, that would be good."
"I would just like a more user-friendly experience to do common administration tasks. I know that you can use MQ Explorer, but having something that's already built in would definitely be useful."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive. The cost is high. There should be more improvement in the new age of technologies."
"While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities."
"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 pricing needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"Amazon SQS is moderately priced."
"The pricing of Amazon SQS is reasonable. The first million requests are free every month, and after, it's cost 40 cents for every million requests. There are not any additional fees."
"Amazon SQS is more affordable compared to other solutions."
"SQS's pricing is very good - I would rate it nine out of ten."
"Compared to the other options and based on what I have heard, Amazon SQS is relatively more expensive, but it is not insanely expensive."
"Amazon SQS is quite expensive and is at the highest price point compared to other solutions."
"It's quite expensive."
"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"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."
"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"IBM MQ is an expensive solution compared to other solutions. However, if you pay less you will not receive the same experience or features."
"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"The license for IBM MQ is commercial and not cheap. You get a multi-platform solution, which is important because it lets you connect systems on mainframes, personal solutions, Unix, Linux, etc."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
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 needs improvement with Amazon SQS?
AWS provides another messaging service, which is fine for certain purposes. SQS meets the cloud messaging workload requirements. However, combining the features of both products could be an easier ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon SQS?
I primarily use SQL Server for messaging services, and I need to offer loose couplings. SQS is handy for offloading non-urgent tasks that can be reverted later. I use it as a queue management servi...
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

EMS, NASA, BMW, Capital One
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SQS vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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