ActiveMQ vs Aurea CX Messenger vs IBM MQ comparison

Apache and Aurea are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0, while Aurea is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0. Apache holds a 26.2% mindshare in MQ, compared to Aurea’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Aurea users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 27 ActiveMQ reviews

6,237 Views
2,763 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Aurea CX Messenger

Read 7 Aurea CX Messenger reviews

224 Views
54 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM MQ

Read 170 IBM MQ reviews

5,680 Views
2,648 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

Aurea CX Messenger

IBM MQ

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ActiveMQ, Aurea CX Messenger, and IBM MQ based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Apache, Salesforce and others in Message Queue (MQ) Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Message Queue (MQ) Software Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

May 2025

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Helped 858,038 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 26.2%, up from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aurea CX Messenger is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.8%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Featured Reviews

Eyob Alemu

Technical Director at NIDP

Efficient data flow management with high performance and occasional stability improvements

For high traffic volumes where management time on ActiveMQ is minimal and where the rate of flow from the provider is slower than from the consumer, ActiveMQ offers the highest performance based on our experience. It has been efficient for data flow control between two endpoints, despite occasional unexpected glitches. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

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Radhey Rajput

Sr. IT Analyst at NCR Corporation

Lightweight and efficient solution

It's very good and lightweight. But, it does not provide web service communication. But it is excellent for internal connections One valuable feature is the messaging broker. If there is a disruption, it restores the messages. And when the application is running, it delivers all the messages. The…

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Md Al-Amin

Senior System Analyst at Thakral

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate many features including queue, topic, durable topic, and selectors. I also value a different support for different protocols such as MQTT and AMQP. It has full support for EIP, REST, Message Groups, UDP, and TCP."

"The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."

"There is a vibrant community, and it is one of the strongest points of this product. We always get answers to our problems. So, my experience with the community support has been good."

"We value ActiveMQ for its performance, throughput, and low latency, especially in handling large volumes of data and sequential management of topics."

"Most people or many people recommended using ActiveMQ on small and medium-scale applications."

"I'm impressed, I think that Active MQ is great."

"I am impressed with the tool’s latency. Also, the messages in ActiveMQ wait in a queue. The messages will start to move when the system reopens after getting stuck."

"It’s a JMS broker, so the fact that it can allow for asynchronous communication is valuable."

More ActiveMQ pros

"SDM: User-friendly tool which allows for a seamless approach to performing hotfixes, if required."

"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is very easy to develop. Most of it is graphical, but we also have the option to add any custom call that you need."

"The Messenger Broker is a really good feature."

"ESB: Provides all kind of possibilities to resolve business needs. A lot of ready to use services plus custom Java services. I used a lot of them all."

"The solution offers excellent stability."

"The solution is highly scalable, this is very important for us. It can handle a lot of messages."

"The most valuable features are RDQM and queue sharing."

"The biggest advantage of IBM MQ is its reliability."

"The usability of the solution is very good."

"It is useful for exchanging information between applications."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"Combined with IBM MQ, this product is our primary data store."

"RabbitMQ and Kafka require more steps for setup than IBM MQ. Installation of the IBM product is very simple."

"IBM MQ processes many thousands of messages in a second, which is efficient for handling high transaction volumes."

More IBM MQ pros

Cons

"It would be great if it is included as part of the solution, as Kafka is doing. Even though the use case of Kafka is different, If something like data extraction is possible, or if we can experiment with partition tolerance and other such things, that will be great."

"There are some stability issues."

"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"

"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."

"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."

"The tool needs to improve its installation part which is lengthy. The product is already working on that aspect so that the complete installation gets completed within a month."

"The clustering for sure needs improvement. When we were using it, the only thing available was an active/passive relationship that had to be maintained via shared file storage. That model includes a single point of failure in that storage medium."

"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."

More ActiveMQ cons

"You should not hurry with upgrades without testing the whole product completely."

"Aurea CX Messenger could improve by making better use of the new APIs"

"The solution needs to improve support for new, more recent protocols on the API."

"I don't know if the last version has the cloud option, but maybe that could be good. That could be something that is included."

"The improvement is that it should be on the cloud and use web services."

"It should include/add more services with the product as per market demand. It should include custom Java services developed by any organization or provide a platform where users/developers can share ideas/custom services, etc."

"The memory management is very poor and it consumes too much memory."

"SonicMQ CAA (continuous availability architecture) functionality on auto failover and data persistence should be made available without a shared drive, as it exists in multi-instance queue managers."

"Everything in the solution could be simplified a little. We have trouble with the configuration and cost which is mostly an internal issue, but nevertheless, the errors do come up when there are configuration changes across a specific version. We have slightly different versions, which may have slightly different configurations which cause issues."

"The customer service or technical support from IBM is not as good as we expected; it could be better. They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge."

"The solution requires a lot of work to implement and maintain."

"They need to add the ability to send full messages (header + payload) from the MQ Explorer program, not just the payload."

"Scalability is lacking compared to the cloud native products coming into the market."

"The monitoring could be improved. It's a pain to monitor the throughput through the MQ. The maximum throughput for a queue or single channel isn't clear. We could also use some professional services by IBM to assess and tune the performance."

More IBM MQ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."

"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."

"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."

"I think the software is free."

"It’s open source, ergo free."

"We use the open-source version."

"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."

"There are no fees because it is open-source."

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"Much better than Oracle SOA Suite."

"You pay nothing for licensing, because the commercial model is a subscription. Other environments, such as QA and Development, are included in the subscription"

"The pricing is not so high."

"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."

"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

"There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries."

"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."

"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."

"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."

"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."

"It is a licensed product. As compared to an open-source solution, such as RabbitMQ, it is obviously costly. If you're using IBM Message Broker, which is a licensed product, IBM MQ is included in the same license. You don't have to pay separately for IBM MQ. The license cost of IBM MQ is lesser than IBM Message Broker."

More IBM MQ pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

34%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Insurance Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

37%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveMQ?

For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ActiveMQ?

We need to address the non-deterministic load issues. Sometimes, ActiveMQ either restarts automatically or goes into ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ActiveMQ?

We have a digital ID platform that uses various services running on Kafka. There are two main endpoints where service...

See all answers

What do you like most about Aurea CX Messenger?

The Messenger Broker is a really good feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aurea CX Messenger?

The pricing is not so high. I will rate it a seven out of ten, where one is the lowest and ten is the highest. There ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Aurea CX Messenger?

The improvement is that it should be on the cloud and use web services because the earlier version is not using web s...

See all answers

What is MQ software?

Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" sol...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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, si...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 17% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ

Compared 5% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 4% of the time

More ActiveMQ Competitors

TIBCO eFTL vs Aurea CX Messenger

Compared 38% of the time

More Aurea CX Messenger Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs IBM MQ

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM MQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

June 2025

Download ActiveMQ product report

Buyer's Guide

Business Activity Monitoring

May 2025

Download Aurea CX Messenger product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM MQ

June 2025

Download IBM MQ product report

Also Known As

AMQ

CX Messenger Enterprise, Aurea Sonic ESB, Aurea Sonic, Aurea Sonic MQ

WebSphere MQ

Overview

Apache ActiveMQ is the most popular and powerful open source messaging and Integration Patterns server.

Apache ActiveMQ is fast, supports many Cross Language Clients and Protocols, comes with easy to use Enterprise Integration Patterns and many advanced features while fully supporting JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4. Apache ActiveMQ is released under the Apache 2.0 License

Apache

CX Messenger lets your technology keep pace with your business. Aurea’s industry leading Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) lets you adapt and change your infrastructure with plug-and-play speed and ease.

Aurea

IBM MQ is a middleware product used to send or exchange messages across multiple platforms, including applications, systems, files, and services via MQs (messaging queues). This solution helps simplify the creation of business applications, and also makes them easier to maintain. IBM MQ is security-rich, has high performance, and provides a universal messaging backbone with robust connectivity. In addition, it also integrates easily with existing IT assets by using an SOA (service oriented architecture).

IBM MQ can be deployed:

On-premises
In the cloud
Hybrid cloud

IBM MQ supports the following APIs:

MQI (Message Queue Interface)
REST
.NET
MQTT
JMS
IBM MQ Light

IBM MQ Features

Some of the most powerful IBM MQ features include:

High availability
Stability and scalability
Flexible deployment options
Uniform clusters
Automated and intelligent workload balancing
Broad language, API, and messaging protocol support
Administrative features that simplify messaging management
Open standards development tools
Simple management tools

IBM MQ Benefits

Some of the benefits of using IBM MQ include:

Multi-style messaging: IBM MQ supports simple multi-style messaging, making it easy to connect diverse systems with support for message queuing, transactions, and more.
Reduced risk: With IBM MQ you will never lose a message, and messages are never delivered more than once.
Cloud-native: Because IBM MQ has a minimal infrastructure, it is suitable to be cloud-native, and therefore has the capability to always remain on.
Available anywhere: Using IBM MQ, you have access to secure messaging anywhere, at any time.
Secure: IBM MQ makes sure to keep your data safe by using TLS secured communications, providing access identity management, message-level security, and more measures to protect your information.
Easy for application programmers: To use IBM MQ, application programmers do not need to have any knowledge of communications programming.
Technical support: IBM MQ has a large user community and also provides support 24/7 as needed.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by IBM MQ users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Sunil S., a manager at a financial services firm, explains that they never lose messages are never lost in transit, mentioning that he can store messages and forward them as required: "Whenever payments are happening, such as incoming payments to the bank, we need to notify the customer. With MQ we can actually do that asynchronously. We don't want to notify the customer for each and every payment but, rather, more like once a day. That kind of thing can be enabled with the help of MQ."

Another PeerSpot reviewer, Luis L. who is a solutions director at Thesys Technologies, says that IBM MQ is a valuable solution and is "A stable and reliable software that offers good integration between different systems."

The head of operations at a financial services firm notes that "I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, is easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."

In addition, a Software Engineer at a financial services firm praises the security benefits of it and states that “it has the most security features I've seen in a communication solution. Security is the most important thing for our purposes."

IBM

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc.

Heathrow, HomeServe, Paypal, Freedom Mortgage

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

May 2025

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