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IBM MQ vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

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)
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (8th), Cloud Data Integration (4th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 24.7%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 10.6%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Vijay Subramanyam - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, reliable, and stable, ensuring high availability for critical integrations
I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten; it is a highly scalable solution. We have around 200 end users using this solution in our company. We use it to its maximum capacity. However, it's not for P1 applications, but definitely for severity two cases (P2 level). It integrates critical applications, but it's not a platform that, if it stops, the entire system would come down. So, it's more like a severity two level. However, it has the potential to eventually become a P1 platform. Not exactly P1 applications, but a P1 platform. Because now we are still in the transition to migrate everything, all the integrations to Mule Anypoint Platform. But once it's done, then this platform becomes critical. Because even now, we have point-to-point connections.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the stability. It's perfect in this way."
"The most valuable feature is the Queue Manager, which lies in the middle between our application and our core banking server."
"We like IBM MQ for our synchronous communications and transactional applications that require a lot of CPS."
"There is no dependency on the end party service's run status."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"A stable and reliable software that offers good integration between different systems."
"Reliable integration between MQ servers is the most valuable feature."
"Currently, we are not using many advanced features. We are only using point-to-point MQ. I have previously used features like context-based authentication, SSL authentication, and high availability. These are good and pretty cool features. They make your business reliable. For critical business needs, everyone uses only IBM MQ. It is the first choice because of its reliability. There is a one-send-and-one-delivery feature. It also has a no-message-loss feature, and because of that, only IBM MQ is used in banking or financial sectors."
"It is very easy to use for building connectors. It comes with a lot of connectors. For example, it has different adapters for NetSuite, which are very easy to use. It also has Salesforce connectors. The object store feature is also really easy to use. Mule Anypoint Platform is also good in terms of performance and how it is managed behind the scenes."
"Good interface, simple to use and stable."
"The most valuable features for us are flexibility, all the features related to connectivity with multiple connectors to the business, and the flexibility of on-premises and cloud deployments."
"We are very satisfied with the DevOps support."
"When we talk about the APIs, there are multiple policies one can apply on APIs, like rate limiting policies, OWASP policies, and OWASP security policies, that can be easily configured in Mule Anypoint Platform."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"It's easy to develop APIs."
"We use simple queues and exchanges to route messages to multiple queues. The publish/subscribe model is also helpful."
 

Cons

"IBM HQ's scalability isn't the best."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"Presenting and maybe having some different options for different user experiences based on the administrative duties that you have to do as an app manager or configure the server or security would be an improvement."
"Scalability is lacking compared to the cloud native products coming into the market."
"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."
"I couldn't find a lot of information on the system API side."
"IBM could revamp the interface. The API is huge, but some developers find it limiting because of the cost. They tend to wrap the API course into the JMS, which means they're missing out on some good features. They should work a little bit on the API exposure."
"It's not always easy for applications to connect to IBM MQ, but I think it's fine in general."
"An on-premise setup requires special skills and you need a lot of professional services."
"From a monitoring point of view, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform can improve on tracking transactions. When dealing with multiple transactions or trading, the system can lose control, and tracking becomes hectic."
"One area for improvement is the Community Hub or developer portal, which should be part of the base offering."
"Price-wise, it is a good product since it is reasonably priced...Mule Anypoint Platform can get too complex for non-technical people."
"What I hear from my customers is that it's very expensive compared to the cost of other integration suites. The cost keeps increasing. MuleSoft should come up with customization factors by using a different way of getting the cost-related stuff to attract customers. That is, they should come up with some cost optimizations."
"It's extremely expensive to change things in Anypoint MQ. There's also this issue of slow output of messages, and that needs to be improved."
"Adding connectors for new upcoming applications would add extra value to this product."
"The inclusion of GenAI in the tool can be good since it is an area that is currently unavailable in the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"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 products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"I think it's pretty reasonable, but I'm not so too sure of the current pricing strategy from IBM. We use many bundled services, and most often, we go through a service provided by some other third-party implementation. So, I can't really give an honest opinion about that."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is cheaper than other RPAs' since it is execution-based. Other RPAs charge based on subscriptions."
"The solution has a high price."
"Mule Anypoint Platform is affordable."
"Price-wise, it is a good product since it is reasonably priced."
"The tool is heavily bundle-priced. I rate the solution’s pricing five on a scale of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The pricing of our solution is highly competitive. While it may not be categorized as exceptionally low, it is certainly more affordable compared to IBM."
"The solution's pricing, as per the old approach, is expensive."
"The solution is the priciest in the market which is an issue for some clients."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?
I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?
This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.