Amazon MQ vs IBM MQ comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.6, while IBM is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.7% mindshare in MQ, compared to IBM’s 26.9% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Amazon MQ

Read 7 Amazon MQ reviews

917 Views
761 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

IBM MQ

Read 170 IBM MQ reviews

7,263 Views
5,157 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Amazon MQ

IBM MQ

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

IBM MQ and Amazon MQ are competing in the messaging platform category. IBM MQ has the upper hand in terms of stability and enterprise-level features, while Amazon MQ is favored for its integration with AWS services and scalability.

Features: IBM MQ is renowned for its reliability, advanced messaging capabilities, and robust security. It is excellent for handling high-throughput environments. Amazon MQ provides seamless integration with AWS services, offers great scalability and emphasizes ease of use, making it an attractive choice for businesses using AWS infrastructure.

Room for Improvement: IBM MQ could improve its integration with cloud-native solutions and decrease its setup complexity. There is room to enhance its cost-effectiveness for smaller deployments. Amazon MQ could enhance its feature set for enterprise-level features and improve its standalone reliability outside AWS environments. Additionally, deeper support options for complex technical issues could be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM MQ requires a more involved setup process but is supported by extensive technical expertise and resources, providing comprehensive support. Amazon MQ is noted for easy deployment through AWS infrastructure, offering a simplified management experience, advantageous for quick cloud deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon MQ benefits from the pay-as-you-go AWS pricing model, resulting in lower initial setup costs and delivering affordability. IBM MQ, while traditionally more expensive, offers excellent ROI for stable, high-throughput environments where advanced features are paramount, making it worthwhile despite higher costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon MQ vs. IBM MQ Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MQ vs. IBM MQ

July 2025

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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

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM MQ

Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

170

Ranking in other categories

Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of Amazon MQ is 3.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.9%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Featured Reviews

AdnanKhan

Senior System Administrator at Ovrlod

Offers good web hosting capacity and security features, but price needs to be reduced

In terms of Amazon MQ's scalability and throughput capabilities, the tool is mostly accessible, stable, and competent with similar platforms. The tool's web hosting capacity and security features are good. The impact of the solution on process efficiencies depends on the clients. If the traffic is too high for a client, I suggest they go with Azure as it is more scalable and stable, while the support is good. I recommend Azure over Amazon MQ. Starting with Amazon MQ can be a bit tricky, but I know that the product is mature and the support is very good. The integration capabilities of Amazon MQ are flexible. I am not using AI with the tool. I would not recommend Amazon MQ to others. As a service provider, my company usually recommends cheaply priced and reliable solutions to our customers. Azure is one most reliable tool that comes at a good price point. Even Google Cloud is a super solution but for launching Google Cloud, support is not available, so one needs to do it with tutorials which are not completely available in YouTube. I rate the tool a seven and a half out of ten.

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Md Al-Amin

Senior System Analyst at Thakral

Reliable and secure performance consistently enhances message transfer

IBM MQ is more reliable and secure than other software. There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked. It is more secure and reliable. Whenever the configuration is done, I do not have to touch it again. It works fine, it is stable, and its communication is to the point and accurate. All performance-related aspects are better. Performance-wise, it is scalable, and other features such as DR, DC, replication, and active passive mode are complex to configure, but it remains scalable. The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Amazon MQ is managed by AWS and is easy to use."

"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."

"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 secure solution."

"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."

"I haven't seen any severe issues related to it. Most of the time it's running. That is the advantage of IBM MQ."

"The usability of the solution is very good."

"I like the MQ's simplicity and rock-solid stability. I've never experienced a failure in two decades caused by the product itself. It has only failed due to human error."

"The solution is fast with end data compared to other messaging tools."

"The solution can scale well."

"We use queue managers/concentrators for message flow going upstream and downstream on applications with enterprise licenses."

"We like IBM MQ for our synchronous communications and transactional applications that require a lot of CPS."

"It runs everywhere, from the mainframe in the US to the PCs in the Gobi desert attached to an analog modem."

More IBM MQ pros

Cons

"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."

"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."

"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."

"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."

"Amazon MQ isn't a cheap tool."

"The solution needs improvement in the back end and security."

"The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box."

"In the next release, I would like for there to be easier monitoring. The UI should be easier for non-technical users to set up appliances and servers."

"The solution requires a lot of work to implement and maintain."

"The pricing needs improvement."

"The issue is that they're using a very old clustering model."

"I can't say pricing is good."

"I would like to see message duplication included."

"Presenting and maybe having some different options for different user experiences based on the administrative duties that you have to do as an app manager or configure the server or security would be an improvement."

More IBM MQ cons

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."

"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."

"The license for IBM MQ is commercial and not cheap. You get a multi-platform solution, which is important because it lets you connect systems on mainframes, personal solutions, Unix, Linux, etc."

"You have to license per application installation and if you expand vertically or horizontally, you will be paying for more licenses. The licenses are approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a license, it can get expensive quite quickly."

"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."

"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."

"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."

"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."

"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."

More IBM MQ pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon MQ?

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon MQ?

The message queue requires an improvement in the message template MQ link. If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon MQ?

We are using Amazon MQ for our AI model. It's used for notifications and other services. We have an application for which Amazon MQ acts as a broker.

See all answers

What is MQ software?

Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" solutions that have come into the market place. From my perspective, while each pro...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon SQS vs Amazon MQ

Compared 33% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs Amazon MQ

Compared 14% of the time

Apache Kafka vs Amazon MQ

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Event Hub Cloud Service vs Amazon MQ

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs Amazon MQ

Compared 6% of the time

More Amazon MQ Competitors

ActiveMQ vs IBM MQ

Compared 40% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 9% of the time

Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon SQS vs IBM MQ

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM MQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

July 2025

Download Amazon MQ product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM MQ

August 2025

Download IBM MQ product report

Also Known As

No data available

WebSphere MQ

Overview

Amazon MQ is a managed message broker service for Apache ActiveMQ that makes it easy to set up and operate message brokers in the cloud. Message brokers allow different software systems–often using different programming languages, and on different platforms–to communicate and exchange information. Amazon MQ reduces your operational load by managing the provisioning, setup, and maintenance of ActiveMQ, a popular open-source message broker. Connecting your current applications to Amazon MQ is easy because it uses industry-standard APIs and protocols for messaging, including JMS, NMS, AMQP, STOMP, MQTT, and WebSocket. Using standards means that in most cases, there’s no need to rewrite any messaging code when you migrate to AWS.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

IBM MQ is a middleware product used to send or exchange messages across multiple platforms, including applications, systems, files, and services via MQs (messaging queues). This solution helps simplify the creation of business applications, and also makes them easier to maintain. IBM MQ is security-rich, has high performance, and provides a universal messaging backbone with robust connectivity. In addition, it also integrates easily with existing IT assets by using an SOA (service oriented architecture).

IBM MQ can be deployed:

On-premises
In the cloud
Hybrid cloud

IBM MQ supports the following APIs:

MQI (Message Queue Interface)
REST
.NET
MQTT
JMS
IBM MQ Light

IBM MQ Features

Some of the most powerful IBM MQ features include:

High availability
Stability and scalability
Flexible deployment options
Uniform clusters
Automated and intelligent workload balancing
Broad language, API, and messaging protocol support
Administrative features that simplify messaging management
Open standards development tools
Simple management tools

IBM MQ Benefits

Some of the benefits of using IBM MQ include:

Multi-style messaging: IBM MQ supports simple multi-style messaging, making it easy to connect diverse systems with support for message queuing, transactions, and more.
Reduced risk: With IBM MQ you will never lose a message, and messages are never delivered more than once.
Cloud-native: Because IBM MQ has a minimal infrastructure, it is suitable to be cloud-native, and therefore has the capability to always remain on.
Available anywhere: Using IBM MQ, you have access to secure messaging anywhere, at any time.
Secure: IBM MQ makes sure to keep your data safe by using TLS secured communications, providing access identity management, message-level security, and more measures to protect your information.
Easy for application programmers: To use IBM MQ, application programmers do not need to have any knowledge of communications programming.
Technical support: IBM MQ has a large user community and also provides support 24/7 as needed.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by IBM MQ users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Sunil S., a manager at a financial services firm, explains that they never lose messages are never lost in transit, mentioning that he can store messages and forward them as required: "Whenever payments are happening, such as incoming payments to the bank, we need to notify the customer. With MQ we can actually do that asynchronously. We don't want to notify the customer for each and every payment but, rather, more like once a day. That kind of thing can be enabled with the help of MQ."

Another PeerSpot reviewer, Luis L. who is a solutions director at Thesys Technologies, says that IBM MQ is a valuable solution and is "A stable and reliable software that offers good integration between different systems."

The head of operations at a financial services firm notes that "I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, is easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."

In addition, a Software Engineer at a financial services firm praises the security benefits of it and states that “it has the most security features I've seen in a communication solution. Security is the most important thing for our purposes."

IBM

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MQ vs. IBM MQ

July 2025

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