ActiveMQ vs Amazon SQS comparison

Apache and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0. Apache holds a 22.0% mindshare in MQ, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 7.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 28 ActiveMQ reviews

4,376 Views
4,157 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Amazon SQS

Read 31 Amazon SQS reviews

2,405 Views
1,443 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

Amazon SQS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

ActiveMQ and Amazon SQS are message broker solutions. Amazon SQS may have the upper hand in scalability and reliability, making it a potentially better choice based on data comparisons.

Features: ActiveMQ supports multiple protocols, advanced message queuing, and can be deployed on-premises. Amazon SQS integrates seamlessly with AWS, supports high scalability, and provides reliable message delivery.

Room for Improvement: ActiveMQ could benefit from smoother deployment and enhanced customer support. Amazon SQS might improve its flexibility and customization options for users unfamiliar with AWS.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ActiveMQ's deployment is customizable but requires manual setup, while Amazon SQS offers smoother deployment through AWS, requiring less hands-on management and providing robust customer support.

Pricing and ROI: ActiveMQ's open-source nature lowers setup costs, offering good ROI for technical users. Amazon SQS uses a pay-as-you-go model, providing predictable costs that scale with usage for efficient ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveMQ vs. Amazon SQS Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ vs. Amazon SQS

March 2026

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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

ActiveMQ

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Amazon SQS

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 22.0%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon SQS is 7.3%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ActiveMQ	22.0%
Amazon SQS	7.3%
Other	70.7%

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Featured Reviews

MoumitaDas

Software Engineer III at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Integration capabilities enhance message handling without human interaction

With ActiveMQ there should be more options. If you work with other technologies, for example, Java, there are many options. We can integrate the way we want ActiveMQ. We can create partitions and clusters, but AP is not providing such options currently. It only provides time, request response timing, the number of requests that need to be handled, and protocol types. The configuration needs to be broadened inside AP to perform in a better way. Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks. The configuration aspect is tricky. When configurations are proper, ActiveMQ almost has zero errors.

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reviewer2281650

IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Efficient data retention and high scalability drive significant productivity improvements

The features of Amazon SQS that I find most valuable include its data retention capabilities and message durability. The retention of data is crucial, as other systems like RabbitMQ or ActiveMQ require management. Furthermore, if there's a failure in the system after consuming a message, SQS's settings ensure the message is not deleted until confirmation. Additionally, generating FIFO and standard queues based on use cases is a helpful feature.

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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

"I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great."

"The initial setup and first deployment of ActiveMQ is fairly simple."

"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."

"Message broadcasting: There could be a use case sending the same message to all consumers. So as a producer, I broadcast the message to a topic. Then, whichever consumers are subscribed to the topic can consume the same message."

"The main function I find valuable in ActiveMQ is facilitating message transfer within the client's internal network. ActiveMQ handles the message transfer from the internal network to the cloud. Regarding multi-protocols, we use different approaches based on client capabilities. Some clients connect for real-time data transfer, using database queries for periodic updates every ten minutes. We collect data from multiple clients, ensuring we get real-time sensor values where possible and periodic updates for others."

"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."

"ActiveMQ demonstrates excellent stability and sturdiness."

"I appreciate many features including queue, topic, durable topic, and selectors. I also value a different support for different protocols such as MQTT and AMQP. It has full support for EIP, REST, Message Groups, UDP, and TCP."

More ActiveMQ pros

"Overall, I would rate Amazon SQS as ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to decouple components."

"We used SQS for the Kapolei system to ensure that certain tasks were executed precisely once. The first-in, first-out (FIFO) capability was a great feature for us. Additionally, its redundancy out of the box meant we didn't have to worry about missing messages. It provided peace of mind and automatically instilled trust, relieving us of any concerns."

"There is no setup just some easy configuration required."

"I am able to find out what's going on very easily."

"We use SNS as the publisher, and our procurement service subscribes to those events using SQS. In the past, we relied on time-based or batch-based processes to send data between services on-premises. With SQS, we can trigger actions based on real-time changes in business processes, improving reliability."

"The scale it manages is quite impressive."

"The dead-letter queue is very helpful in maintaining the messages that come into the queue."

More Amazon SQS pros

Cons

"The clustering for sure needs improvement. When we were using it, the only thing available was an active/passive relationship that had to be maintained via shared file storage. That model includes a single point of failure in that storage medium."

"The tool needs to improve its installation part which is lengthy. The product is already working on that aspect so that the complete installation gets completed within a month."

"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."

"AI capabilities require improvement in future updates."

"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"

"Distributed message processing would be a nice addition."

"It would be great if it is included as part of the solution, as Kafka is doing. Even though the use case of Kafka is different, If something like data extraction is possible, or if we can experiment with partition tolerance and other such things, that will be great."

"Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks."

More ActiveMQ cons

"Sending or receiving messages takes some time, and it could be quicker."

"A primary area of improvement for Amazon SQS is the message size limitation, which is currently restricted to 256 kilobytes per message."

"Be cautious around pay-as-you-use licensing as costs can become expensive."

"As a company that uses IBM solutions, it's difficult to compare Amazon SQS to other solutions. We have been using IBM solutions for a long time and they are very mature in integration and queuing. In my role as an integration manager, I can say that Amazon SQS is designed primarily for use within the Amazon ecosystem and does not have the same level of functionality as IBM MQ or other similar products. It has limited connectivity options and does not easily integrate with legacy systems."

"The cost became an issue, leading us to consider other solutions."

"Improvement is needed in terms of troubleshooting and logs."

"There could be improvements in the UI for security and scalability."

"Sometimes, we have to switch to another component similar to SQS because the patching tool for SQS is relatively slow for us."

More Amazon SQS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."

"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."

"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."

"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."

"I think the software is free."

"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."

"We use the open-source version."

"It’s open source, ergo free."

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"Compared to EC2 and other services, Amazon SQS' pricing is cheaper."

"The pricing of Amazon SQS is reasonable. The first million requests are free every month, and after, it's cost 40 cents for every million requests. There are not any additional fees."

"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."

"Compared to the other options and based on what I have heard, Amazon SQS is relatively more expensive, but it is not insanely expensive."

"SQS's pricing is very good - I would rate it nine out of ten."

"It's quite expensive."

"The pricing model is pay-as-you-use. It depends on your usage and configuration."

"Amazon SQS is quite expensive and is at the highest price point compared to other solutions."

More Amazon SQS pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveMQ?

For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Amazon SQS?

It is stable and scalable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon SQS?

There is nothing I can remember that I would want as new features for Amazon SQS.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon SQS?

If you need a messaging service to help decouple your application, Amazon SQS would be a smart choice because it's easy to use and very easy to manage.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM MQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 52% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 11% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 8% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs ActiveMQ

Compared 5% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 4% of the time

More ActiveMQ Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Amazon SQS

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon MQ vs Amazon SQS

Compared 12% of the time

IBM MQ vs Amazon SQS

Compared 11% of the time

Redis vs Amazon SQS

Compared 11% of the time

Apache Kafka vs Amazon SQS

Compared 10% of the time

More Amazon SQS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

March 2026

Download ActiveMQ product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon SQS

March 2026

Download Amazon SQS product report

Also Known As

AMQ

No data available

Overview

Apache ActiveMQ is the most popular and powerful open source messaging and Integration Patterns server.

Apache ActiveMQ is fast, supports many Cross Language Clients and Protocols, comes with easy to use Enterprise Integration Patterns and many advanced features while fully supporting JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4. Apache ActiveMQ is released under the Apache 2.0 License

Apache

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queuing service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SQS eliminates the complexity and overhead associated with managing and operating message oriented middleware, and empowers developers to focus on differentiating work. Using SQS, you can send, store, and receive messages between software components at any volume, without losing messages or requiring other services to be available. Get started with SQS in minutes using the AWS console, Command Line Interface or SDK of your choice, and three simple commands.

SQS offers two types of message queues. Standard queues offer maximum throughput, best-effort ordering, and at-least-once delivery. SQS FIFO queues are designed to guarantee that messages are processed exactly once, in the exact order that they are sent.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc.

EMS, NASA, BMW, Capital One

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ vs. Amazon SQS

March 2026

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