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IBM MQ vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 8, 2024

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 February 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 23.6%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 11.0%, up from 9.5% 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

"It is very robust and very scalable."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"The most valuable feature of IBM MQ is transaction processing."
"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."
"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."
"The clusterization which results in persistence is the most valuable feature."
"We use our routing feature when the request is coming from the business application. The request goes to the distributive side and it is routed to the right claim instance."
"The most valuable features are RDQM and queue sharing."
"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 integration potential is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is their integrations and very good API management."
"API management."
"The tool helps with order management and automates the enterprise's orchestration, invoice creation, product maintenance, and product life cycle. The API manager feature helps us configure, secure, and call APIs."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The solution's deployment and proxy processes are very good."
"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."
 

Cons

"While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities."
"With IBM products, there's less marketing. If they do more demos and more seminars on their products, it will be very useful. On a given day. I get seminar invites for many vendors and products, but for IBM, I may get an invite once or twice a year."
"I can't say pricing is good."
"It's not always easy for applications to connect to IBM MQ, but I think it's fine in general."
"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."
"The solution requires a lot of work to implement and maintain."
"I'm not sure that current version has event-driven mechanism requests that people go for. I would like the latest version to come with both type of event mechanisms: an email server and a POP server. If that is not there, then that would be a great addition."
"They probably need to virtualize the MQ flow and allow us to design the MQ flow using the UI. It would also help to migrate to the cloud easily and implement AWS Lambda functions with minimum coding. If you have to code, then just with NodeJS or Java."
"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."
"The solution is very expensive. They need to work on the pricing."
"Anypoint MQ's capabilities are mainly used for messaging purposes, but it doesn't have typical use cases that extend as far as other Message Queue software."
"Mule should have better B2B integration."
"Pricing is one aspect of the solution that is troublesome. It's too expensive for smaller organizations."
"The solution's licensing model is expensive and could be improved."
"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."
"The initial setup should be made easy and the documentation should have some guidance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."
"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."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"The product is still very expensive."
"Mule is not the cheapest integration platform out there, but it deserves the price we are paying."
"Mule Anypoint Platform pricing is slightly higher compared to Dell Boomi."
"MuleSoft Anypoint Platform really needs to work on its pricing model because it's very complicated."
"Mule Anypoint Platform is affordable."
"Making changes in Anypoint MQ is expensive."
"The product's price seems to be competent in comparison to other products in the market."
"The solution's pricing, as per the old approach, is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
24%
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: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.