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ActiveMQ vs Redis comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (2nd)
Redis
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (5th), Managed NoSQL Databases (8th), In-Memory Data Store Services (1st), Vector Databases (3rd), AI Software Development (16th)
 

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.
KG
Database Admin and Architect at D-EDGE Hospitality Solutions
Performance shines with seamless session caching and minimal configuration
The best features of Redis, from my personal perspective, are the performance, which is very quick, and it's very simple to implement. Since I started using Redis, I feel that the product is saving me some performance tuning time. It's very easy, I have few parameters to tune, and it seems to have performance without a lot of working on the performance, compared to Cassandra, where you have to configure the memory and many other settings. The integration capability of Redis is excellent. Redis is very affordable because it's free.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."
"ActiveMQ demonstrates excellent stability and sturdiness."
"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."
"The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is the holding and forwarding."
"Redis is better tested and is used by large companies. I haven't found a direct alternative to what Redis offers. Plus, there are a lot of support and learning resources available, which help you use Redis efficiently."
"Redis provides an easy setup and operation process, allowing users to quickly connect and use it without hassle."
"The best thing about Redis is its ability to handle large amounts of data without frequently hitting the database. You can store data in temporary memory, especially for high-volume data."
"Redis is a simple service that does what it promises."
"I find Redis valuable primarily for its caching capabilities, particularly in handling cache requests effectively. Its simplicity in managing key-value pairs for caching is one of its strengths, making it a preferred choice over more complex databases like MongoDB for specific use cases. However, I haven't explored Redis extensively for managing complex data structures beyond caching, as MongoDB might be more suitable for such scenarios."
"The performance of Redis is very fast."
"It makes operations more efficient. The information processing is very fast, and very responsive. It's all about the technology."
"Redis is a simple, powerful, and fast solution."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."
"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 stability issues."
"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"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."
"The initial setup took some time as our technical team needed to familiarize themselves with Redis."
"If we use a lot of data, it will eventually cost us a lot."
"It's actually quite expensive."
"The only thing is the lack of a GUI application. There was a time when we needed to resolve an issue in production. If we had a GUI, it would have been easier."
"Sometimes, we use Redis as a cluster, and the clusters can sometimes suffer some issues and bring some downtime to your application."
"Redis could improve its efficiency in handling locally stored data, not just Amazon Cloud or Google Cloud."
"The tool should improve by increasing its size limits and handling dynamic data better. We use the client ID or associate it with a key for static content. The solution will not be easy for a beginner. Unless you understand SQL data, it will be difficult to understand and use Redis. It also needs to be user-friendly."
"The solution's pricing for a local installation is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the software is free."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"We use the open-source version."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"Redis is an open-source solution. There are not any hidden fees."
"We saw an ROI. It made the processing of our transactions faster."
"Redis is not an overpriced solution."
"Redis is an open-source product."
"The tool is open-source. There are no additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
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 Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

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 do you like most about Redis?
Redis is better tested and is used by large companies. I haven't found a direct alternative to what Redis offers. Plus, there are a lot of support and learning resources available, which help you u...
What needs improvement with Redis?
The disadvantage of Redis is that it's a little bit hard to have too many clusters or too many nodes and create the clusters. The sync between the nodes is easier to implement with Couchbase, for e...
What is your primary use case for Redis?
Redis is used for a part of a booking engine for travel, specifically for the front part to get some sessions and information about the sessions. If a customer or user is using the sites in differe...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
Redis Enterprise
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
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Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Redis and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.