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Apache Kafka vs Red Hat AMQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 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

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (8th)
Red Hat AMQ
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and Red Hat AMQ aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 3.7%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
Red Hat AMQ, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 9.5% mindshare, up 8.4% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.7%
Apache Flink14.8%
Databricks12.5%
Other69.0%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat AMQ9.5%
IBM MQ25.5%
ActiveMQ25.1%
Other39.9%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Data streaming transforms real-time data movement with impressive scalability
I worked with Apache Kafka for customers in the financial industry and OTT platforms. They use Kafka particularly for data streaming. Companies offering movie and entertainment as a service, similar to Netflix, use Kafka Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming. It allows the use of data in…
SachinJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages high availability and fault tolerance for critical systems with user-friendly management features
I have experience with features such as message persistence and fault tolerance because I configured high availability and fault tolerance for the client environment, including active-active and active-passive configurations. I mainly prefer active-active. I created a security feature for user authentication and authorization in Red Hat AMQ using vault. When you enable the vault, then your whole Red Hat AMQ becomes more secure. Management is straightforward. I configured it and created documentation. The operations team takes care of the operation part. I educate them on how to manage access, so they can easily add new people who join the company or manage the people who leave. The benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring. On the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails. It also shows utilization in the tool. These features also come with other AMQs such as Amazon and IBM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kafka, as compared with other messaging system options, is great for large scale message processing applications. It offers high throughput with built-in fault-tolerance and replication."
"Good horizontal scaling and design."
"Apache Kafka has good integration capabilities and has plenty of adapters in its ecosystem if you want to build something. There are adapters for many platforms, such as Java, Azure, and Microsoft's ecosystem. Other solutions, such as Pulsar have fewer adapters available."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"The convenience in setting up after major problems like data center blackouts is a notable feature."
"One of the most valuable features I have found is Kafka Connect."
"Its availability is brilliant."
"Apache Kafka is particularly valuable for stream data processing, handling transactions, managing high levels of transactions, and orchestrating stream mode data."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"This product is well adopted on the OpenShift platform. For organizations like ours that use OpenShift for many of our products, this is a good feature."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"The most valuable feature for us is the operator-based automation that is provided by Streams for infrastructure as well as user and topic management. This saves a lot of time and effort on our part to provide infrastructure. For example, the deployment of infrastructure is reduced from approximately a week to a day."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"The benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring; on the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails, and it also shows utilization in the tool."
 

Cons

"Apache Kafka can improve by making the documentation more user-friendly. It would be beneficial if we could explain to customers in more detail how the solution operates but the documentation get highly technical quickly. For example, if they had a simple page where we can show the customers how it works without the need for the customer to have a computer science background."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"The solution should be easier to manage. It needs to improve its visualization feature in the next release."
"Apache Kafka can improve by adding a feature out of the box which allows it to deliver only one message."
"There are some latency problems with Kafka."
"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."
"More Windows support, I believe, is one area where it can improve."
"Kafka has some limitations in terms of queue management."
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on. There is a tool that is somewhat connected to Kafka called Service Registry. This is a product by Red Hat that I would like to see integrated more tightly."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"The price of the solution is low."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. For on-premise, there is an annual fee, which starts at 60,000 euros, but it is usually higher than 100,000 euros. The cost for a project including the subscription is usually between 100,000 to 200,000 euros. The cost also depends on the level of support. There are two different levels of support."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"The solution is open-source."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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 Red Hat AMQ?
The areas for improvement include cost, which is a primary concern. The deployment process is simple, but the cost is very important. Additionally, the management portal should be more user-friendl...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
For use cases for Red Hat AMQ, let's take banking purposes. This depends upon the firm or the service or product company. For example, let's take HDFC Bank or any other bank. Whenever a customer de...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat AMQ?
I work primarily with Red Hat. For IBM, I have worked with their channel partner, not directly with IBM. For Amazon, I work with partners only. I am working with one company as a consultant. I also...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.