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IBM Event Streams 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

IBM Event Streams
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM Event Streams is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.5%, up from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ25.5%
IBM Event Streams1.1%
Other73.4%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.
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 system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"The stability has been good."
"We have found the MQ messaging topologies valuable."
"I would rate the solution ten out of ten because I have been working on it for the past fifteen years."
"Overall the solution operates well and has good integration."
"We use queue managers/concentrators for message flow going upstream and downstream on applications with enterprise licenses."
"Has helped integrate between applications, reduce rework, and costs by reusing working components of existing applications."
"The methodology and the way in which the platform has been produced as a standard is most valuable. There are so many different versions of it now, but the actual basic functionality and the simplicity of it have made it far easier to be implemented in so many different instances. When I worked with the OS/2 or PS/2 machine environment, the messaging mechanisms were based upon IBM MQ. It is so versatile, which is the main reason that I'm a fan of it."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"IBM could revamp the interface. The API is huge, but some developers find it limiting because of the cost. They tend to wrap the API course into the JMS, which means they're missing out on some good features. They should work a little bit on the API exposure."
"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."
"Support can be better because sometimes we need explanations for some behaviors of the product, and it's not easy to reach the proper person in IBM support."
"We would like to see the IBM technical support team extend their hand to providing support for other cloud vendors like Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS"
"We need to have a better administration console and better monitoring features. Right now, they are not good and could be a lot better."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"It would be an advantage if they can include streaming in IBM MQ, similar to Kafka. Kafka is used mainly for streaming purposes. This feature is clearly lacking in IBM MQ. If they add this feature to IBM MQ, it will have an edge over other products."
"You should be able to increase the message size. It should be dynamic. Each queue has a limitation of 5,000."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is averagely priced."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."
"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 has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"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."
"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise145
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Event Streams?
The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Event Streams?
The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Event Streams?
The product's interface needs improvement. Additionally, there could be a management console to create and manage clusters.
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

American Airlines, UBank, Bitly, Eurobits, Active International, Bison, Contextor, Constance Hotels, Resorts & Golf, Creval, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, FaceMe, FacePhi, Fitzsoft, Fuga Technologies, Guardio, Honeywell, Japanese airline, Jenzabar, KONE
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Event Streams vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.