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ActiveMQ vs Amazon SQS 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

ActiveMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon SQS
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 19.8%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon SQS is 6.5%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ActiveMQ19.8%
Amazon SQS6.5%
Other73.7%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

MD
Software Engineer III at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Integration capabilities enhance message handling without human interaction
With ActiveMQ there should be more options. If you work with other technologies, for example, Java, there are many options. We can integrate the way we want ActiveMQ. We can create partitions and clusters, but AP is not providing such options currently. It only provides time, request response timing, the number of requests that need to be handled, and protocol types. The configuration needs to be broadened inside AP to perform in a better way. Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks. The configuration aspect is tricky. When configurations are proper, ActiveMQ almost has zero errors.
Roberto Costa - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
Facilitates seamless queue creation and management for efficient application decoupling
If you need a messaging service to help decouple your application, Amazon SQS would be a smart choice because it's easy to use and very easy to manage Amazon SQS is a simple service to use. If we compare with other solutions such as RabbitMQ for messaging, Amazon SQS is easier to use and easier…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."
"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"ActiveMQ demonstrates excellent stability and sturdiness."
"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."
"ActiveMQ is a good solution; it is low cost, high performance, and scalable."
"Most people or many people recommended using ActiveMQ on small and medium-scale applications."
"The most important feature is that it's best for JVM-related languages and JMS integration."
"The initial setup and first deployment of ActiveMQ is fairly simple."
"We use SNS as the publisher, and our procurement service subscribes to those events using SQS. In the past, we relied on time-based or batch-based processes to send data between services on-premises. With SQS, we can trigger actions based on real-time changes in business processes, improving reliability."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon SQS is the interface."
"The solution is easy to scale and cost-effective."
"The dead-letter queue is very helpful in maintaining the messages that come into the queue."
"The solution is simple to use, and I am able to find out what's going on very easily."
"I am able to find out what's going on very easily."
"The libraries that connect and manage the queues are rich in features."
"We use the tool in interface integrations."
 

Cons

"From the TPS point of view, it's like 100,000 transactions that need to be admitted from different devices and also from the different minor small systems. Those are best fit for Kafka."
"AI capabilities require improvement in future updates."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"Configuring ActiveMQ brokers for working in a cluster is difficult and has many constraints."
"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."
"The UI. It's both a good thing and a bad thing. The UI is too simple. Sometimes you wanna see the messages coming to the queue, and you have to refresh the dashboard, the console of the product."
"Apache ActiveMQ needs some improvement playing with multi-platform message clients."
"Sometimes issues arise in production with ActiveMQ due to the number of requests. For example, if you have configured one thousand requests at a time and it receives one thousand and one messages at a time, it breaks."
"I do not think that this solution is easy to use and the documentation of this solution has a lot of problems and can be improved in the next release."
"The current visibility timeout of five minutes is okay. However, I'd like to explore the possibility of extending it for specific use cases."
"Sending or receiving messages takes some time, and it could be quicker."
"There is room for improvement by making use of Kafka services to create more flexible data streams."
"I do not think that this solution is easy to use and the documentation of this solution has a lot of problems and can be improved in the next release. Most of the time, the images in the document are from older versions."
"For Amazon SQS, in particular, I think AWS Management Console has shortcomings. AWS Management Console should be a better pluggable option to help users with some integrations."
"The retention period for messages could be improved. Currently, messages are retained for four or seven days."
"Sometimes, we have to switch to another component similar to SQS because the patching tool for SQS is relatively slow for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"We use the open-source version."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"I rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-use. It depends on your usage and configuration."
"Amazon SQS is moderately priced."
"The pricing of Amazon SQS is reasonable. The first million requests are free every month, and after, it's cost 40 cents for every million requests. There are not any additional fees."
"Compared to EC2 and other services, Amazon SQS' pricing is cheaper."
"It's quite expensive."
"Amazon SQS is more affordable compared to other solutions."
"Amazon SQS offers a generous free tier, beyond which it remains very cost-effective. The cost per million messages is less than a dollar, making it an economical choice."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ActiveMQ?
Pricing is something to consider with ActiveMQ, though cloud pricing is not costly and depends upon the compute selection. Focusing on AI is essential nowadays. AI capabilities require improvement ...
What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?
In my current organization, I'm only working with ActiveMQ. I previously worked with IBM WebSphere MQ.
What advice do you have for others considering ActiveMQ?
We have not deployed ActiveMQ's flexible clustering as that requirement is not present for us. We only use active-passive configuration. On a scale of one to ten, I rate ActiveMQ a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Amazon SQS?
There is nothing I can remember that I would want as new features for Amazon SQS.
What is your primary use case for Amazon SQS?
If you need a messaging service to help decouple your application, Amazon SQS would be a smart choice because it's easy to use and very easy to manage.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon SQS?
I would recommend Amazon SQS to other people. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 10.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
EMS, NASA, BMW, Capital One
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Amazon SQS and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.