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IBM MQ vs Red Hat AMQ 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

IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
Red Hat AMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 29.8%, up from 26.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat AMQ is 12.6%, up from 11.4% 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.
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 work with."
"Reliable messaging and throughput are the most valuable."
"I have found that the solution scales well."
"IBM MQ is robust compared to other products in the market. It also gives you support from the IBM team."
"The MQ protocol is widely used across multiple applications and it's so simple for connectivity."
"The methodology and the way in which the platform has been produced as a standard is most valuable. There are so many different versions of it now, but the actual basic functionality and the simplicity of it have made it far easier to be implemented in so many different instances. When I worked with the OS/2 or PS/2 machine environment, the messaging mechanisms were based upon IBM MQ. It is so versatile, which is the main reason that I'm a fan of it."
"I appreciate the level of control we have over queue managers, queues, and the messaging itself. That provides good security. So, the control and scalability of messaging are important to me."
"Reliability is the most valuable feature. MQ is used to support critical business applications."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"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 solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"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."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
 

Cons

"We have had scalability issues with some projects in the past."
"You should be able to increase the message size. It should be dynamic. Each queue has a limitation of 5,000."
"The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM)."
"It could provide more monitoring tools and some improvement to the UI. I would also like to see more throughput in future versions."
"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."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"Better error handling, such as a default dead message queue for errors, would be beneficial."
"The solution should offer a freeware version, free vouchers, or certifications for learning purposes and building knowledge base."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"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 turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on. There is a tool that is somewhat connected to Kafka called Service Registry. This is a product by Red Hat that I would like to see integrated more tightly."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is high."
"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."
"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."
"Small-scale companies may not want to buy IBM MQ because of its high cost."
"The fee for this solution is on the higher end of the scale."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price a seven. The product is expensive."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"The solution is open-source."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 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

WebSphere MQ
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.