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ActiveMQ vs Red Hat AMQ 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
Red Hat AMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
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 Red Hat AMQ is 8.4%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ActiveMQ22.0%
Red Hat AMQ8.4%
Other69.6%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

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.
SachinJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Specialist at Intuitive Technology Partners
Efficiently manages high availability and fault tolerance for critical systems with user-friendly management features
I have experience with features such as message persistence and fault tolerance because I configured high availability and fault tolerance for the client environment, including active-active and active-passive configurations. I mainly prefer active-active. I created a security feature for user authentication and authorization in Red Hat AMQ using vault. When you enable the vault, then your whole Red Hat AMQ becomes more secure. Management is straightforward. I configured it and created documentation. The operations team takes care of the operation part. I educate them on how to manage access, so they can easily add new people who join the company or manage the people who leave. The benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring. On the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails. It also shows utilization in the tool. These features also come with other AMQs such as Amazon and IBM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"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."
"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great."
"Most people or many people recommended using ActiveMQ on small and medium-scale applications."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"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 benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring; on the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails, and it also shows utilization in the tool."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature for us is the operator-based automation that is provided by Streams for infrastructure as well as user and topic management. This saves a lot of time and effort on our part to provide infrastructure. For example, the deployment of infrastructure is reduced from approximately a week to a day."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
 

Cons

"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."
"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."
"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."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."
"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."
"Distributed message processing would be a nice addition."
"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on. There is a tool that is somewhat connected to Kafka called Service Registry. This is a product by Red Hat that I would like to see integrated more tightly."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s open source, ergo free."
"I think the software is free."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"The solution is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software 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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
 

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.
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 needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The areas for improvement include cost, which is a primary concern. The deployment process is simple, but the cost is very important. Additionally, the management portal should be more user-friendl...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
For use cases for Red Hat AMQ, let's take banking purposes. This depends upon the firm or the service or product company. For example, let's take HDFC Bank or any other bank. Whenever a customer de...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat AMQ?
I work primarily with Red Hat. For IBM, I have worked with their channel partner, not directly with IBM. For Amazon, I work with partners only. I am working with one company as a consultant. I also...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.