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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
163
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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 41.5%, down from 43.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 22.7%, down from 26.8% 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 solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."
"Has helped integrate between applications, reduce rework, and costs by reusing working components of existing applications."
"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."
"Reliable integration between MQ servers is the most valuable feature."
"I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."
"Support for JMS 2.0, because we develop solutions compatible with Java EE7."
"I haven't seen any issues with respect to the message loss."
"IBM MQ is robust compared to other products in the market. It also gives you support from the IBM team."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
 

Cons

"The product does not allow users to access data from API or external networks since it can only be used in a closed network, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."
"It would be great if the dashboard had additional features like a board design."
"The monitoring could be improved. It's a pain to monitor the throughput through the MQ. The maximum throughput for a queue or single channel isn't clear. We could also use some professional services by IBM to assess and tune the performance."
"The initial setup is difficult. Creating your own cluster is difficult. Working with cluster repositories is difficult. Issue management with IBM MQ is difficult."
"IBM MQ could improve capacity, monitoring, and automatization."
"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."
"It would be nice if we could use the cluster facilities because we are doing active/passive configuration use."
"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."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"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."
"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
"IBM MQ is an expensive solution compared to other solutions. However, if you pay less you will not receive the same experience or features."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"​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.​"
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
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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
43%
Computer Software Company
13%
Transportation Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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
 

Learn More

 

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: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.