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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
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat AMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 26.4%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat AMQ is 9.5%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for asynchronous communication, enabling services to operate independently but issues with stability
The feature of ActiveMQ which I feel is good is its ability to have DLP, the later queues. If something goes wrong with the platform, it retries. Even if it fails, it goes to DLP, and later we can rescan the same event for processing. The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable.
Sther Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-learn solution that can be used with microservices
We have done around 20 projects in Red Hat AMQ. I have two projects using Red Hat AMQ, and I can share how its scalability has impacted them. In one project, we have a solution for authentication and authorization using SSO. We need to integrate with other systems in two ways. We use Red Hat AMQ for social data, sending messages to other queues, and integrating with business. We have two databases with the same information. The solution is good because it helps us solve problems with messaging. For instance, when messaging doesn't change, we still check the cloud and verify the information. In another project, we have a large banking solution for the Amazon region using Red Hat AMQ for financial transactions. In this solution, business messages are sent, and another system processes them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."
"The most important feature is that it's best for JVM-related languages and JMS integration."
"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"We value ActiveMQ for its performance, throughput, and low latency, especially in handling large volumes of data and sequential management of topics."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"This product is well adopted on the OpenShift platform. For organizations like ours that use OpenShift for many of our products, this is a good feature."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
 

Cons

"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."
"There are some stability issues."
"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."
"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."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"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."
"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."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"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."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
We need to address the non-deterministic load issues. Sometimes, ActiveMQ either restarts automatically or goes into ActiveMQ mode, causing interruptions. We need to enhance stability and improve t...
What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?
We have a digital ID platform that uses various services running on Kafka. There are two main endpoints where services interact with external services. These include an automatic biometric service ...
What do you like most about Red Hat AMQ?
AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination.
What needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The product needs to improve its documentation and training.
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
We just started working with Red Hat AMQ. We selected it as the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) platform for a new airport project. I manage the entire Master System Integration (MSI) project for one ...
 

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: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.