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ActiveMQ vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions 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
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (5th), Relational Databases Tools (14th), Data Warehouse (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 19.8%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is 9.3%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ActiveMQ19.8%
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions9.3%
Other70.9%
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
Sr. Manager 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

"It is cost effective and is a much cheaper solution compared to Weblogic or IBM MQ."
"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."
"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."
"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."
"ActiveMQ is a good solution; it is low cost, high performance, and scalable."
"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"The installation was straightforward."
"Thanks to ActiveMQ, the system is able to scale its heavy computing components during traffic peaks."
"We saved lots of money in terms of licensing."
"We have never lost a single message with RabbitMQ."
"It is easy to use. The addition of more queues and more services can be managed very easily."
"It's a very good product for reducing the time and man power needed for database optimization for datawarehousing purposes."
"Some of the most valuable features are publish and subscribe, fanout, and queues."
"Large amounts of data can be moved pretty fast using the solution."
"The service and support we’ve received from both Pivotal and EMC has been exemplary."
"Scalability is simple because it's an MPP database; if you need more processing power or you need more storage, you just add a few more nodes in the cluster, and it works on common commodity hardware, so you can use any type of server without needing proprietary hardware, making it fairly flexible."
 

Cons

"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."
"This solution could improve by providing better documentation."
"Message management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."
"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"There are some stability issues."
"Because this is an open-source project, there is no support. We don't have any help or anything like that."
"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."
"In build monitoring, the interface could be improved."
"We had several de-clustering problems."
"I saw some limitation with respect to the column store, and removing this would be an improvement."
"It needs a much more robust and user friendly monitoring and management front-end tool."
"This solution struggled with multi-regional synchronization."
"They should improve on the ability to scale your queues in a very simple and elegant way with the same power that they have would be great."
"We found some issues with larger tables that have daily data appended, where after a while this seems to create lag in the query speed."
"The product is pretty hard to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"I think the software is free."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"We use the open-source version."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"The pricing for RabbitMQ is reasonable. It is worth the cost."
"It is an open-source product."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"The product is available for free use since it is an open-source technology."
"The solution's pricing is cost-effective as it does not involve significant expenses. Licensing is required only for the server, while clients do not need any licensing. Therefore, it proves to be a cost-efficient option."
"On a scale of one to five, with five being the most competitive pricing, I would rate this solution as a four."
"This is an open source solution."
"The pricing is okay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business30
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise49
 

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 do you like most about VMware RabbitMQ?
RabbitMQ provides access to SDKs for development and the ability to raise and log tickets if we encounter issues. We can integrate RabbitMQ using various languages like Java or Python using the pro...
What needs improvement with VMware RabbitMQ?
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 ...
 

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: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.