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Amazon MQ vs IBM MQ 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

Amazon MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
7
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
169
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of Amazon MQ is 3.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.2%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

David Onuh - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides you with a URL where you can either send or retrieve messages
For messaging, we use SQL queues, not MQ queues. When a request comes into our front-end application, we put this message into a queue. The right service picks up a particular message from the queue, performs the operation, and calls the next service. The next service taking that message can either perform services on the message or attach it to a new queue from multiple services. It's as if we have multiple services working hand-in-hand, but we use a queue system to either get or send messages. I only use Amazon MQ for one specific thing. I wouldn't say I've used it extensively to know what is more beneficial. We use the solution to pick out matrices from a particular queue, process the queue, and process the messages they push into something else. It was really fast. One of the good things I love about the solution is that you hardly get two services working on one message. When a subscriber to a queue consumes their message, it's in the queue at a particular moment. All the messages are only visible to the particular subscriber. Suppose ten services are trying to get a message from the queue. Out of the ten, if five pick the same messages, you will get duplicate transactions and weird errors. It does a very good job abstracting that for you, so you don't have to write the logic. Amazon MQ has done all that it was supposed to do. Most of the issues boil down to a skill or a pricing issue. Overall, I rate Amazon MQ ten out of ten.
Md Al-Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"Amazon MQ is a secure solution."
"Amazon MQ is important for being collaborative, allowing for centralized information."
"Amazon MQ is managed by AWS and is easy to use."
"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"The most valuable features are the point to point messaging and the MQ API."
"The first things are its simplicity and its robustness. Compared to any other product, it's the most robust I've worked with. And it's extremely easy to manage."
"The solution is stable."
"It is easy to create a new queue, and the queue manager connecting to the remote queue works smoothly once the IP and port are included."
"The clusterization which results in persistence is the most valuable feature."
"The reliability of the queuing is the most valuable feature."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"I have found that the solution scales well."
 

Cons

"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"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."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"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."
"With IBM products, there's less marketing. If they do more demos and more seminars on their products, it will be very useful. On a given day. I get seminar invites for many vendors and products, but for IBM, I may get an invite once or twice a year."
"The main issue we are having with the solution is due to the connection dropouts which have been going on for a long time now."
"I'm not sure that current version has event-driven mechanism requests that people go for. I would like the latest version to come with both type of event mechanisms: an email server and a POP server. If that is not there, then that would be a great addition."
"MQ needs instruments for connection with new modern queues like Kafka or RabbitMQ."
"I would like to see faster monitoring tools for this solution."
"In IBM MQ, the channel connection is an area where my company faces some limitations. At times, we hit limitations on the connection, meaning the connection is fully occupied."
"The GUI part could be better."
"While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"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."
"It's a very expensive product."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"It's super expensive, so ask them if they can consolidate some other licensing costs. But, IBM is IBM, so I guess we'll pay for it."
"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
 

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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MQ vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.