IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus comparison

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus

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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 WebSphere Message Broker

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (15th)

TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.0%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

BrajendraKumar

Technical Architect at HCL Technologies

Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability

I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

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Mustofa Yonus

Cheif Specialist- Licensing Systems at Roads & Transport Authority

A robust product that needs to improve the functionality it offers related to API lifecycle management

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six to seven out of ten. My company consists of around 7000 employees, and we use the solution as an integrated service in around 300 to 400 systems, both internally and externally, making it a huge number. Our company uses the solution every minute and every second, and we can't function without it.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has good integration."

"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."

"Straightforward development and deployment."

"The most valuable feature of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is the ability to facilitate communication with legacy systems, offering a multitude of great capabilities. For example, if there is a mainframe system in place with a web service serving as the front end. In that case, the solution enables efficient protocol transformations to convert all request payloads into a format that the legacy systems can accept, rendering the integration and transformation processes seamless and highly effective."

"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."

"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."

"We only use the basic features, but the most valuable one for us is the Publish-subscribe pattern."

"The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"It's very stable and reliable."

"It is easy to develop. It has a very wide range of features. The older versions are very stable, and there are no issues with the product."

"The most attractive and beneficial feature is the ease of development."

"The technology is really easy to learn."

"The solution is very stable."

"TIBCO has the platform in terms of speed and ease of use."

"The stability of this solution is excellent."

"The GUI and IDE features of this solution are easy to work with and to develop. We find application management easy using this solution. It is a stable product"

More TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus pros

Cons

"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."

"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."

"There is some lag in the GUI. There have been some performance issues and maybe it's because of the application data."

"The product's features are not being upgraded or enhanced by the vendor"

"The installation configuration is quite difficult."

"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."

"The solution can add container engines such as docker."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"The solution is very expensive when you use multiple components, it would b better if this could be reduced."

"Our version does not have cloud capabilities."

"Issues with the support, the fees, and the termination of the professional services are reasons we are looking for other solutions."

"The stability of their latest version is not on par with their classic version 5.X."

"The initial setup process could be easier."

"We'd like to see improvements in product support."

"If TIBCO could be able to sort the size of their base image in the Container edition, it would be really marvelous. Right now it's around 299 MB. We'd really want it to reduce to a few MBs."

"Migration to cloud solutions or products should be made convenient, transparent, and easily understandable."

More TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."

"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."

"The solution is expensive."

"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."

"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."

"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"

"The solution is expensive."

"This product is more expensive than competing products."

"The licensing cost is a challenge for quite a few customers."

"Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."

"When it comes to cost, TIBCO is much more competitive than a product like Pega."

"Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive."

"The biggest issue disadvantage of TIBCO is that it is expensive."

"The price is on the higher side. For the same price, if I go to the previous version, I would have got a lot more capacity with similar kinds of features."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

32%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.

What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...

What do you like most about TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?

Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive.

What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?

I don't like the product's API management platform, as it doesn't offer users enough functionality to help with API lifecycle management, making it a product that is way behind its competitors. The...

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Compared 59% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 20% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus

Download TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

ActiveMatrix Service Bus

Overview

WebSphere Message Broker is an enterprise service bus (ESB) providing connectivity and universal data transformation for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and non-SOA environments. It allows businesses of any size to eliminate point-to-point connections and batch processing regardless of platform, protocol or data format.

IBM

TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is a platform for developing, deploying, and managing applications that conform to a service-oriented architecture. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is a lightweight enterprise service bus that helps organizations bridge the mediation gap in their SOA infrastructure. It reduces complexity and increases flexibility and reuse by replacing hard-coded service dependencies with configuration, and can be used to onboard services from a third-party environment or a TIBCO-based infrastructure. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus provides service mediation capabilities to the TIBCO ActiveMatrix SOA platform. Service mediation allows you to adapt to changing requirements for developing mediation flows.

TIBCO

Sample Customers

WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire

Colonial Life, CTBC Bank, New World Mobility, QUALCOMM, Swisscom Mobile, T-Mobile USA, Tata Teleservices, Telecom Italia

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus