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ActiveMQ vs Amazon MQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

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

ActiveMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 19.8%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon MQ is 3.9%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ActiveMQ19.8%
Amazon MQ3.9%
Other76.3%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

NS
Sr. Manager - Digital at IndiGo
Offers diverse messaging protocols and excellent cloud support
In my current organization, I'm only working with ActiveMQ. I previously worked with IBM WebSphere MQ The features of ActiveMQ and WebSphere MQ fundamentally do the same thing. From my experience, I prefer WebSphere MQ. Both are very sturdy solutions; there is no doubt. Both are sturdy and…
RamilCerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at SM Supermalls
Has provided consistent functionality across on-premise and cloud while simplifying cloud integration
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-month free trial of a single instance, allowing per month usage of either ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ, five gig of Amazon EFS storage, and for ActiveMQ, it's 20 gig of Amazon EBS storage for RabbitMQ. I did not purchase Amazon MQ through AWS Marketplace. Amazon MQ has published information about having 650 hours of free trial usage. This can be found via the AWS website by searching for AWS MQ. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon MQ an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Loose coupling of components by the use of messaging queues allows for completely separate component life cycles and ownership within the organization."
"It's a very easy-to-use product, documentation is sufficient, and anyone with a bit of knowledge about technology, like Java, can quickly set it up and it could be up and running in minutes."
"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."
"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"Depending on the problem, AMQ resolved nearly everything."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"We value ActiveMQ for its performance, throughput, and low latency, especially in handling large volumes of data and sequential management of topics."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its managed service aspect. It's simple to implement and use. It requires minimal effort to maintain business operations."
"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"Amazon MQ is a secure solution."
"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"Since we utilize AWS, it's easy to integrate Amazon MQ and work with other third-party software, as they have standard communications via API or native language."
"Amazon MQ is important for being collaborative, allowing for centralized information."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"Amazon MQ is managed by AWS and is easy to use."
 

Cons

"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."
"From the TPS point of view, it's like 100,000 transactions that need to be admitted from different devices and also from the different minor small systems. Those are best fit for Kafka. We have used it on the customer side, and we thought of giving a try to ActiveMQ, but we have to do a lot of performance tests and approval is required before we can use it for this scale."
"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."
"We ran into various stability problems with our implementations over the years."
"Another area of improvement is the monitoring console, which is kind of rudimentary."
"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"
"The UI. It's both a good thing and a bad thing. The UI is too simple. Sometimes you wanna see the messages coming to the queue, and you have to refresh the dashboard, the console of the product."
"Apache ActiveMQ needs some improvement playing with multi-platform message clients."
"Amazon MQ is a good solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. It's open-source software, which means it's cheaper than its competitors."
"Monitoring capabilities are not yet fully developed, since it's a message broker service, so it focuses more on the health of Apache."
"On a scale of one to 10, one being the best and 10 being the worst, I would give Amazon MQ an eight for overall performance."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"The product should improve its monitoring capabilities. It needs to improve the pricing also."
"The solution needs improvement in the back end and security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the software is free."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"We use the open-source version."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ActiveMQ?
Pricing is something to consider with ActiveMQ, though cloud pricing is not costly and depends upon the compute selection. Focusing on AI is essential nowadays. AI capabilities require improvement ...
What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?
In my current organization, I'm only working with ActiveMQ. I previously worked with IBM WebSphere MQ.
What advice do you have for others considering ActiveMQ?
We have not deployed ActiveMQ's flexible clustering as that requirement is not present for us. We only use active-passive configuration. On a scale of one to ten, I rate ActiveMQ a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Amazon MQ?
Amazon MQ needs to have data collected on performance to analyze trends for improvement. Additionally, some tools can suggest how to improve performance in terms of speed, time, and processing, whi...
What is your primary use case for Amazon MQ?
I have some experience working with Amazon MQ.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon MQ?
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-mon...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Amazon MQ and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.