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ActiveMQ vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions comparison

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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
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (6th), Relational Databases Tools (14th), Data Warehouse (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 20.1%, down from 24.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is 9.8%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ActiveMQ20.1%
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions9.8%
Other70.1%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot
Jun 27, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

MD
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.
Karthik Shivaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at STI INFOTECH PVT LTD
Improved multi-cloud data management has simplified operations and supports seamless Kubernetes
From my perspective, the biggest challenge with VMware right now is the pricing. To be very honest, in many cases I find myself recommending alternative solutions instead of VMware. Even if those alternatives come with a bit more complexity, customers are often more willing to accept that than the current VMware pricing model. In the past, VMware used a socket-based licensing model, which was easier for customers to understand and budget for. Now the shift to a core-based licensing model has significantly increased costs for many environments, especially for organizations running modern high-core CPUs. One positive aspect of the new model is that VMware has bundled several components together. For example, earlier when deploying vSphere, customers also had to purchase vCenter separately for management. Now multiple components are packaged into a single SKU, which simplifies some aspects of procurement and deployment. While this consolidation has its benefits, the overall licensing and commercial costs remain very high. Pricing is not the only issue. I believe Broadcom also needs to reconsider its strategy in light of the current market conditions. The approach they are taking may be strategic from a business perspective, but from what I see in the field, it is leading to lost opportunities. Many customers who previously relied on VMware are now actively exploring alternative virtualization platforms. I’m not sure where this direction will ultimately lead, but based on my experience, it is already affecting adoption. Since you’ve been trying to reach me for some time—and we also had a discussion a couple of years ago—I hope this feedback helps Broadcom understand the current sentiment in the market and potentially make adjustments. Another important concern is the way features are bundled. In many cases, customers only need basic virtualization and high availability capabilities. However, the current packaging often includes additional features that they may not need. A good analogy is that if a customer only needs an entry-level car, we shouldn’t be forced to sell them a Rolls-Royce. VMware could benefit from adopting a more modular or à la carte licensing model, where customers can choose only the components they truly require. For example, if a customer only needs core virtualization functionality, they should be able to purchase just that. This would allow partners and solution providers to better align solutions with customer requirements and position VMware more competitively in the market. Another challenge I want to highlight is the pricing model based on U.S. dollars and the way multi-year licensing is handled. In many enterprise and government projects, customers prefer to commit to three-year or five-year licenses and pay the full amount upfront. However, in approximately 20% of the deals I work on, we lose opportunities because VMware only provides dollar-based pricing for the first year. When it comes to the following years, the contract requires renewals annually rather than allowing a fixed multi-year upfront payment. This approach is particularly problematic for government and public sector customers. Many of them are ready and willing to pay for three or five years in advance, but the current VMware model does not support that structure effectively. Because pricing is tied to the U.S. dollar and subject to yearly adjustments, VMware does not lock in pricing for the full term. From a customer’s perspective, this introduces uncertainty and makes procurement more complicated. Ideally, if a price is quoted—for example, $100 per year—it should remain consistent across a multi-year agreement. Customers would be comfortable committing to a five-year term if the price were fixed and predictable. Unfortunately, that flexibility is currently not available across VMware products, whether it is vSphere, VMware Tanzu solutions, or other offerings. For large enterprise environments, one-year commitments are usually not practical. Many enterprise customers prefer longer-term agreements for budgeting and procurement reasons. Even when they are willing to accept the higher cost associated with the core-based licensing model, the lack of a clear multi-year upfront option often becomes a deal-breaker.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Thanks to ActiveMQ, the system is able to scale its heavy computing components during traffic peaks."
"There is a vibrant community, and it is one of the strongest points of this product. We always get answers to our problems. So, my experience with the community support has been good."
"Loose coupling of components by the use of messaging queues allows for completely separate component life cycles and ownership within the organization."
"I am impressed with the tool’s latency. Also, the messages in ActiveMQ wait in a queue. The messages will start to move when the system reopens after getting stuck."
"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"I fully recommend this product, but you need to have some expertise working with JMS and asynchronous tasks."
"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"Depending on the problem, AMQ resolved nearly everything."
"It stands out because it's opensource and cost effective, and it does everything pretty well."
"RabbitMQ helped us develop a highly scalable system by decoupling the front end and back end, easily withstanding and passing stress and load testing with more than 10K API calls while providing message queuing and a distributed environment."
"Helps us to achieve large-scale analytics."
"We saved lots of money in terms of licensing."
"The product's reliability is the most valuable feature."
"It's a very good product for reducing the time and man power needed for database optimization for datawarehousing purposes."
"Being MPP which is a bulk operator - we were able to do 1.5 million calculation in 15 minutes."
"The solution's best feature is its exceptional speed, delivering efficient utilization of resources."
 

Cons

"Configuring ActiveMQ brokers for working in a cluster is difficult and has many constraints."
"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."
"Because this is an open-source project, there is no support. We don't have any help or anything like that."
"I would like the tool to improve compliance and stability. We will encounter issues while using the central applications. In the solution's future releases, I want to control and set limitations for databases."
"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."
"For additional functionality, I suggest making it easier to install and monitor the queues, topics, broker status, publisher status, and consumer status. Improved monitoring tools would help avoid needing to manually access the server for monitoring purposes."
"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"Stability-wise, the consumer needs to configure with caution to make sure the queues never overflow; I have experienced data loss in scenarios in which consumer cases were configured incorrectly."
"The ongoing response from their support on certain technical issues has been slow. It would help if we can have a faster turn-around here."
"It will be very useful if we could communicate with other database types from Greenplum (using a database link)."
"If messages pile up until the space of the memory is full, then basically, the cluster goes down, and someone has to log in through the backend and purge all messages."
"We would like to see Greenplum maintain a closer relationship with and parity to features implemented in PostgreSQL."
"Customer Service: It's very poor. Technical Support: It's very poor."
"Implementing a circuit breaker scenario using RabbitMQ is complicated. This complexity arises because manual intervention is required to manage worker details and handle operations based on worker IP addresses."
"It doesn't work as efficiently as we'd like because it requires more segment node capacity (size, RAM, CPU) than we currently have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"I think the software is free."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"On a scale of one to five, with five being the most competitive pricing, I would rate this solution as a four."
"The price is pretty good."
"Since the tool is an open-source product, there is no need to pay anything."
"Tanzu Greenplum's pricing is really competitive and gives excellent value for money."
"The product is available for free use since it is an open-source technology."
"This is an open source solution."
"It is the best product with best fit for price/performance customer objectives."
"It’s an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business32
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise52
 

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.
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu GemFire?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is that it is a bit expensive.
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu GemFire?
In terms of weak points in VMware Tanzu Data Solutions, pricing is always the root cause of people not wanting to renew licenses or do any upgrades.
 

Also Known As

AMQ
Greenplum, Pivotal Greenplum, VMware RabbitMQ, VMware Tanzu GemFire, VMware Postgres
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
General Electric, Conversant, China CITIC Bank, Aridhia, Purdue University
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. VMware Tanzu Data Solutions and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.