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Apache Kafka vs Red Hat AMQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (7th)
Red Hat AMQ
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and Red Hat AMQ aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 2.3%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
Red Hat AMQ, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 8.8% mindshare, up 7.5% since last year.
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Sther Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-learn solution that can be used with microservices
We have done around 20 projects in Red Hat AMQ. I have two projects using Red Hat AMQ, and I can share how its scalability has impacted them. In one project, we have a solution for authentication and authorization using SSO. We need to integrate with other systems in two ways. We use Red Hat AMQ for social data, sending messages to other queues, and integrating with business. We have two databases with the same information. The solution is good because it helps us solve problems with messaging. For instance, when messaging doesn't change, we still check the cloud and verify the information. In another project, we have a large banking solution for the Amazon region using Red Hat AMQ for financial transactions. In this solution, business messages are sent, and another system processes them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to set up."
"Kafka is scalable. It can manage a high volume of data from many sources."
"We appreciate the ability to persistently and quickly write data, as well as the flexibility to customize it for multiple customers. Additionally, we like the ability to retain data within Apache Kafka and use features, such as time travel to access past customer data. The connection with other systems, such as Apache Kafka and IBM DB2."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is Kafka Connect."
"Excellent speeds for publishing messages faster."
"With Kafka, events and streaming are persistent, and multiple subscribers can consume the data. This is an advantage of Kafka compared to simple queue-based solutions."
"Apache Kafka is scalable. It is easy to add brokers."
"The stream processing is a very valuable aspect of the solution for us."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"This product is well adopted on the OpenShift platform. For organizations like ours that use OpenShift for many of our products, this is a good feature."
"The most valuable feature for us is the operator-based automation that is provided by Streams for infrastructure as well as user and topic management. This saves a lot of time and effort on our part to provide infrastructure. For example, the deployment of infrastructure is reduced from approximately a week to a day."
"AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like for there to be some authorization and HTL security."
"Kafka is complex and there is a little bit of a learning curve."
"Config management can be better."
"The user interface is one weakness. Sometimes, our data isn't as accessible as we'd like. It takes a lot of work to retrieve the data and the index."
"The third party is not very stable and sometimes you have problems with this component. There are some developments in newer versions and we're about to try them out, but I'm not sure if it closes the gap."
"Kafka's interface could also use some work. Some of our products are in C, and we don't have any libraries to use with C. From an interface perspective, we had a library from the readies. And we are streaming some of the products we built to readies. That is one of the requirements. It would be good to have those libraries available in a future release for our C++ clients or public libraries, so we can include them in our product and build on that."
"The management tool could be improved."
"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."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"Kafka is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"This is an open-source version."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. For on-premise, there is an annual fee, which starts at 60,000 euros, but it is usually higher than 100,000 euros. The cost for a project including the subscription is usually between 100,000 to 200,000 euros. The cost also depends on the level of support. There are two different levels of support."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The solution is open-source."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
The open-source version of Apache Kafka results in minimal costs, mainly linked to accessing documentation and limited support. Enterprises usually opt for the more cost-effective open-source edition.
What do you like most about Red Hat AMQ?
AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination.
What needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The product needs to improve its documentation and training.
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
We just started working with Red Hat AMQ. We selected it as the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) platform for a new airport project. I manage the entire Master System Integration (MSI) project for one ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
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