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Amazon MQ vs Apache Kafka 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

Amazon MQ
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (6th)
Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Amazon MQ and Apache Kafka aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Amazon MQ is designed for Message Queue (MQ) Software and holds a mindshare of 4.1%, up 3.4% compared to last year.
Apache Kafka, on the other hand, focuses on Streaming Analytics, holds 4.0% mindshare, up 2.8% since last year.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon MQ4.1%
IBM MQ21.0%
ActiveMQ19.8%
Other55.099999999999994%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
Apache Flink8.9%
Databricks8.1%
Other79.0%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

RamilCerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at SM Supermalls
Has provided consistent functionality across on-premise and cloud while simplifying cloud integration
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-month free trial of a single instance, allowing per month usage of either ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ, five gig of Amazon EFS storage, and for ActiveMQ, it's 20 gig of Amazon EBS storage for RabbitMQ. I did not purchase Amazon MQ through AWS Marketplace. Amazon MQ has published information about having 650 hours of free trial usage. This can be found via the AWS website by searching for AWS MQ. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon MQ an eight out of ten.
Bruno da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
Have worked closely with the team to deploy streaming and transaction pipelines in a flexible cloud environment
The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better. I started working with Apache Kafka from its early days, and I have seen many improvements. The back office functionality could be enhanced. Scaling up continues to be a challenge, though it is much easier now than it was in the beginning.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"Since we utilize AWS, it's easy to integrate Amazon MQ and work with other third-party software, as they have standard communications via API or native language."
"Amazon MQ is a secure solution."
"Amazon MQ is important for being collaborative, allowing for centralized information."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its managed service aspect. It's simple to implement and use. It requires minimal effort to maintain business operations."
"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"Amazon MQ is a good solution for small and medium-sized enterprises."
"The most valuable feature of Kafka is the Kafka Streams client."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"Apache Kafka is a good solution with many good features but for large deployments, I would choose IBM MQ over Kafka."
"Kafka is scalable to any degree we want, and it has several connectors available for integration in multiple languages, making it easier for integration."
"Kafka provides us with a way to store the data used for analytics. That's the big selling point. There's very good log management."
"The most valuable features are the stream API, consumer groups, and the way that the scaling takes place."
"Apache Kafka is a mature product and can handle a massive amount of data in real time for data consumption."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
 

Cons

"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"On a scale of one to 10, one being the best and 10 being the worst, I would give Amazon MQ an eight for overall performance."
"Amazon MQ isn't a cheap tool."
"Monitoring capabilities are not yet fully developed, since it's a message broker service, so it focuses more on the health of Apache."
"Amazon MQ is a good solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. It's open-source software, which means it's cheaper than its competitors."
"The product should improve its monitoring capabilities. It needs to improve the pricing also."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"Kafka requires non-trivial expertise with DevOps to deploy in production at scale."
"I suggest using cloud services because the solution is expensive if you are using it on-premises."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"I would like them to reduce the learning curve around the creation of brokers and topics. They also need to improve on the concept of the partitions."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"Pulsar gives more scalability to an even grouping, but Apache Kafka is used more if you want to send something in a time series-based. If this does not matter to you then Pulsar could be more customizable."
"The management overhead is more compared to the messaging system. There are challenges here and there, like for long usage, it requires restarts and nodes from time to time."
"The manageability should be improved. There are lots of things we need to manage and it should have a function that enables us to manage them all cohesively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"Apache Kafka is open-source and can be used free of charge."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"I rate Apache Kafka's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing fees for Apache Kafka."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon MQ?
Amazon MQ needs to have data collected on performance to analyze trends for improvement. Additionally, some tools can suggest how to improve performance in terms of speed, time, and processing, whi...
What is your primary use case for Amazon MQ?
I have some experience working with Amazon MQ.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon MQ?
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-mon...
What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
The long-term data storage feature in Apache Kafka depends on the setting, but I believe the maximum duration is seven days.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MQ vs. Apache Kafka and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.