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IBM MQ vs TIBCO Enterprise Message Service 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 Business Activity Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
165
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 42.8%, up from 42.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 20.0%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring
 

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.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
A value-for-money solution with the requisite features to facilitate efficient communication within an organization
We have been struggling with the stability of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service (EMS), but now I don't know how to differentiate whether the issues are caused by the infrastructure or the product itself. So, I am hesitant to provide a rating because I suspect that it might be due to my setup or environment. I really don't know how to evaluate the product independently. We have faced challenges with EMS, but I am unsure if it is related to infrastructure or the product itself. Even if I reach out for support, I am uncertain if the issue will be resolved since it could be partly related to the product. It's a tough situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The high availability and session recovery are the most valuable features because we need the solution live all day."
"The MQ protocol is widely used across multiple applications and it's so simple for connectivity."
"It is easy to create a new queue, and the queue manager connecting to the remote queue works smoothly once the IP and port are included."
"The most valuable features are RDQM and queue sharing."
"Technical support is quite helpful."
"The system integration is good."
"Reliability is the most valuable feature. MQ is used to support critical business applications."
"Integrates between distributed systems: For example, it can help integrate processing between mainframe, client-server, web-based applications by integrating the messages, supporting Service Oriented Architecture."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
 

Cons

"Should have more integration in the monitoring tools."
"Sometimes, not all messages are consumed in the queues. File transfers need improvement."
"At a recent conference, I went to a presentation that had the latest version and it has amazing stuff that's coming out. So, I am excited to use those, specifically surrounding the web console and the fact that it's API integrated."
"I would like to see faster monitoring tools for this solution."
"We are looking at the latest version, and we hope that resilience, high availability, and monitoring will be improved. It can have some more improvements in the heterogeneous messaging feature. The current solution is on-premises, so good integration with public cloud messaging solutions would be useful."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"IBM MQ is not very user-friendly."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM is expensive."
"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
"The licensing fees are paid quarterly and they are expensive."
"Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"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."
"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."
"You have to license per application installation and if you expand vertically or horizontally, you will be paying for more licenses. The licenses are approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a license, it can get expensive quite quickly."
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
"​The cost of licensing is very high. One should go for the product only if they need to ensure message reliability and they cannot afford to lose messages.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
15%
Transportation Company
4%
Energy/Utilities Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
Maybe the capability to undergo training for specific functionalities, such as implementing Kaspersky for handling high volume transactions in TIBCO Enterprises Message Service. Occasionally, we su...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
I use TIBCO Enterprise Message Service for some of my internal communications. For instance, if there is an API called A that needs to communicate with an API referred to as B, we prefer to use mes...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Enterprise Message Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
BNL, SunGard, TUI Group, UTi Worldwide, Yellow Pages Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. TIBCO Enterprise Message Service and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.