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IBM MQ vs PubSub+ Platform 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM MQ is valued for reliability and cost savings, with returns within two years despite unclear direct financial impact.
Sentiment score
6.0
Organizations see mixed ROI with PubSub+ Platform, noting both operational benefits and challenges with costs and alternatives.
It's a product which integrates the external systems with internal systems or among the systems themselves, making it an essential technology component required to integrate multiple systems.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
IBM MQ support is responsive with quick issue resolution, but some users experience delays in accessing skilled assistance.
Sentiment score
7.4
PubSub+ Platform excels in customer service with knowledgeable, responsive support and strong leadership involvement, ensuring efficient issue resolution.
We cannot hold on to the project for a long time just to wait for IBM to fix the issues.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The response time for IBM MQ support could be better because when we are using IBM MQ and something goes wrong, support is required as the resource availability of the IBM product is very limited.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
With containerized flavors of these products, we are having a tough time dealing with PMRs because the versions are new to IBM.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
they can come on calls and assist quite well,
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I have looked into PubSub+ Platform's support forums to read and understand a few things that I did not understand.
Developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM MQ is scalable and suitable for enterprises, though some note challenges with modernization and automation compared to cloud-native solutions.
Sentiment score
7.3
PubSub+ Platform is scalable with easy expansion, although some find Docker setup complex; supports multi-cloud messaging efficiently.
IBM MQ handles many thousands of messages in a second, indicating good scalability.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
In our environment, we do not have horizontal scaling for IBM MQ, but as demand increases, we would just vertically scale it.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
We've got 12 VMs running, and it's very easy to scale.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
In terms of scalability, I would rate PubSub+ Platform as quite scalable, around 9.99.
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
IBM MQ is praised for stability, reliability, efficient message handling, and performance across complex environments despite occasional external issues.
Sentiment score
8.3
PubSub+ Platform is praised for exceptional stability, handling data surges with high availability, and reliability in high-volume environments.
We have never had any downtime or crashes since it's been running.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
The transaction is always guaranteed with IBM MQ, which is the main reason I have been working with it for fifteen years while dealing with financial transactions or messages.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
Otherwise, they're completely stable.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I think the stability of PubSub+ Platform is pretty good, and I would rate it at eight.
Developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

IBM MQ users seek enhanced security, cloud integration, intuitive interfaces, performance improvements, lower pricing, and active-active clustering.
PubSub+ Platform needs simpler usage, better connectivity, enhanced tools, robust authentication, and improved integration with open-source and existing applications.
Having a graphical user interface would improve usability.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge.
Information Technology Solution Consultant
It was as impressive as Kafka, better than Kafka based on my experience working on the Solace and Kafka white paper.
freelancer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
There is a lack of functionality in PubSub+ Platform; Solace has introduced microservices and micro-integrations recently with some capabilities, but they can improve on these.
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The analytics tools integrated within PubSub+ Platform are good, as it has already integrated with cloud logging and the cloud logging features, making the analytics pretty good already.
Developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

IBM MQ's pricing is high compared to open-source alternatives, though enterprise agreements and flexible licensing can reduce costs.
Enterprise users value PubSub+ Platform’s flexibility, free version, and tailored agreements despite perceived high licensing costs.
It's not cheap.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It's possible to get some training, but the cost of this learning is expensive.
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
The price of IBM MQ is definitely on the higher side.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Pricing-wise for PubSub+ Platform, I find it a little expensive, so I would rate it at six.
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

IBM MQ offers reliable message delivery, scalability, integration, security, and ease of use, ensuring data integrity across diverse platforms.
PubSub+ Platform offers advanced messaging with scalability, low latency, cloud integration, real-time support, and comprehensive analytics for businesses.
These are financial transactions, so we do not want to lose the message at any cost.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
It's time-tested, very stable, highly resilient, and has all the features to troubleshoot even if something goes wrong.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The solution's ability to decouple message producers and consumers allows us to have high cohesion and low coupling, making it an excellent solution for that purpose.
freelancer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The main benefits PubSub+ Platform provides for the end-user include building a robust and scalable system with very low network latency, which improves the customer experience, whether using mobile phones or applications.
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The best features of PubSub+ Platform include being highly scalable, allowing us to handle billions and billions of events.
Developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st)
PubSub+ Platform
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
8th
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (11th), Streaming Analytics (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 21.0%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PubSub+ Platform is 5.9%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM MQ21.0%
PubSub+ Platform5.9%
Other73.1%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

MK
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
Reliable payment processing is achieved with minimal disruption
Currently, we have some disadvantages; it's a bit difficult to use IBM ID to access support from the IBM site. To get nice support from IBM, we need to use IBM ID, and it's a bit complicated to integrate it with IBM support. 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. They could add some new features into IBM MQ to make it better. A graphical user interface in addition to MQ Explorer could be useful, but we are satisfied with MQ Explorer as well.
Deepankar Bbhowmick - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Messaging design has become visual and reliable and now supports fast microservice communication
The unique functions I appreciate about PubSub+ Platform are that it allows me to design my solution in a graphical manner, which is not available in many other products, and the design can also be pushed to the actual infrastructure layer, making it quite advantageous. Mesh technology is useful in scenarios where different geographies have to be connected, although such situations are not commonly found. It is beneficial but not a super-used feature of PubSub+ Platform. The event replay function is quite mature in PubSub+ Platform, allowing me to replay messages that are days in the past, which is a good feature. The main benefits PubSub+ Platform provides for the end-user include building a robust and scalable system with very low network latency, which improves the customer experience, whether using mobile phones or applications. This type of messaging framework is extremely important, and Solace is a very good product in that space. Nowadays, most applications are built using microservices technology, with small microservices interchanging messages via PubSub+ Platform. Without it, realizing a scalable system would not be possible; for example, one cannot have Netflix or similar services that require quick data transit and a good user experience, ensuring that data cannot be lost in transit. The analytics part of PubSub+ Platform is quite useful as it can connect with many analytical software tools, mainly for analysis of system logs, such as Splunk, DataDog, or Prometheus. It has the flexibility to connect with any of these and supports OpenTelemetry, which is not available in many other products, making traceability very easy. I can see how a message travels from a source system to the target system, end-to-end, along with what happens to that message along the path, making the analytics quite good.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
5%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise147
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PubSub+ Event Broker?
Pricing-wise for PubSub+ Platform, I find it a little expensive, so I would rate it at six.
What needs improvement with PubSub+ Event Broker?
Potential areas for improvement in PubSub+ Platform are its authentication mechanisms, which could be slightly better. While simple authentication using basic methods is easy, moving to more robust...
What is your primary use case for PubSub+ Event Broker?
PubSub+ Platform is primarily used for guaranteed delivery of messages from across systems, for microservice-based development, and for high-speed data consumption purposes. Guaranteed transmission...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
PubSub+ Event Broker, PubSub+ Event Portal
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
FxPro, TP ICAP, Barclays, Airtel, American Express, Cobalt, Legal & General, LSE Group, Akuna Capital, Azure Information Technology, Brand.net, Canadian Securities Exchange, Core Transport Technologies, Crédit Agricole, Fluent Trade Technologies, Harris Corporation, Korea Exchange, Live E!, Mercuria Energy, Myspace, NYSE Technologies, Pico, RBC Capital Markets, Standard Chartered Bank, Unibet 
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. PubSub+ Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.