ActiveMQ vs IBM MQ vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

Apache and IBM are both solutions in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Apache holds a 26.4% mindshare in MQ, compared to IBM’s 26.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ActiveMQ

Read 26 ActiveMQ reviews

6,648 Views
4,133 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM MQ

Read 168 IBM MQ reviews

6,025 Views
3,999 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Read 58 MuleSoft Anypoint Platform reviews

2,559 Views
1,781 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ActiveMQ

IBM MQ

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ActiveMQ, IBM MQ, and MuleSoft Anypoint Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Apache, Amazon Web Services (AWS) 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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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 May 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 26.4%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.2%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 9.5%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Message Queue (MQ) Software

Featured Reviews

Prashant-Sharma

Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Allows for asynchronous communication, enabling services to operate independently but issues with stability

The feature of ActiveMQ which I feel is good is its ability to have DLP, the later queues. If something goes wrong with the platform, it retries. Even if it fails, it goes to DLP, and later we can rescan the same event for processing. The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable.

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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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Vijay Subramanyam

Delivery Head at cblsolutions

Robust, reliable, and stable, ensuring high availability for critical integrations

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten; it is a highly scalable solution. We have around 200 end users using this solution in our company. We use it to its maximum capacity. However, it's not for P1 applications, but definitely for severity two cases (P2 level). It integrates critical applications, but it's not a platform that, if it stops, the entire system would come down. So, it's more like a severity two level. However, it has the potential to eventually become a P1 platform. Not exactly P1 applications, but a P1 platform. Because now we are still in the transition to migrate everything, all the integrations to Mule Anypoint Platform. But once it's done, then this platform becomes critical. Because even now, we have point-to-point connections.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main function I find valuable in ActiveMQ is facilitating message transfer within the client's internal network. ActiveMQ handles the message transfer from the internal network to the cloud. Regarding multi-protocols, we use different approaches based on client capabilities. Some clients connect for real-time data transfer, using database queries for periodic updates every ten minutes. We collect data from multiple clients, ensuring we get real-time sensor values where possible and periodic updates for others."

"The most important feature is that it's best for JVM-related languages and JMS integration."

"Message broadcasting: There could be a use case sending the same message to all consumers. So as a producer, I broadcast the message to a topic. Then, whichever consumers are subscribed to the topic can consume the same message."

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

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

"Reliable message delivery and mirroring."

"It provides the best support services."

"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."

More ActiveMQ pros

"It runs everywhere, from the mainframe in the US to the PCs in the Gobi desert attached to an analog modem."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is that it's a very strong integration platform but it is quite a monolithic solution. It's got everything."

"The system integration is good."

"It's highly scalable. It provides various ways to establish high availability and workloads. E.g., you can spread workloads inside of your clusters."

"IBM MQ's flexibility has sped up our active communication."

"The most valuable features of IBM MQ are its guarantee of delivery, ability to handle high volume while maintaining high availability, and robust security measures such as SSL, TLS, and RBAC."

"We like IBM MQ for our synchronous communications and transactional applications that require a lot of CPS."

More IBM MQ pros

"It reduces manual loads in maintaining servers as it comes with the Cloud Hub feature."

"Whenever we need some support in our local language, we get it easily. They also have an office in Germany and if a person is unable to contact them by phone, they can go to the office in person."

"The most valuable features for us are flexibility, all the features related to connectivity with multiple connectors to the business, and the flexibility of on-premises and cloud deployments."

"It has improved our organization a lot because of the increase in productivity, and it has simplified the development of products. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is a highly effective tool where you can build integrations so effectively. If you establish the integration platform, it increases productivity. It helps us to do effective re-authentication, and it speeds the integration."

"The integration potential is excellent."

"Mule Anypoint Platform's valuable features are its flexibility in terms of deployment and its SaaS capabilities."

"Messaging and queueing solution that has good stability and scalability. It can be used for a variety of messaging types."

"Good interface, simple to use and stable."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform pros

Cons

"There are some stability issues."

"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."

"One potential area would be the complexity of the initial setup."

"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. We have used it on the customer side, and we thought of giving a try to ActiveMQ, but we have to do a lot of performance tests and approval is required before we can use it for this scale."

"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."

"I would like the tool to improve compliance and stability. We will encounter issues while using the central applications. In the solution's future releases, I want to control and set limitations for databases."

"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."

"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."

More ActiveMQ cons

"the level of training as well as product marketing for this product are not that great. You rarely find a good training institute that provides training. Many of the architects in several organization are neither aware of the product nor interested in using it. IBM should provide good training on products like this."

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

"I couldn't find a lot of information on the system API side."

"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."

"It needs a User Interface which is better than the aging MQ Explorer. The existing solution MQ Explorer is outdated."

"The licensing fees should be more cost-effective so that we can better pitch the product to our clients. With the pricing as it is, they tend to move away from IBM products."

"The integration capabilities could be even easier."

"It could get a face lift with a modern marketing campaign."

More IBM MQ cons

"Code quality, Code Security, SaaS, and DaaS security, can all be improved."

"The stability could be better."

"The product does not provide a priority level for the message."

"Its documentation needed a little bit of work to make it more usable. It is a platform that is used mainly by developers and other people for connecting systems. Its documentation was confusing in some areas and was not very helpful in other areas. I had to go to a consultant to get some work done, which ideally shouldn't be required."

"There are so many solutions like this, but this is not as mature as those products. The other MQ products have the capability of reprocessing and maintaining the persistence of the data. They can handle large volumes and large messages, but Anypoint MQ doesn't have those capabilities."

"The inclusion of GenAI in the tool can be good since it is an area that is currently unavailable in the solution."

"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Mule Anypoint Platform should improve its pricing. In my experience, a customer using the sandbox version couldn't upgrade to the final version because it exceeded their budget. Another area for improvement is the login mechanism. We need to integrate with third-party products for strong authentication, but it would be better if MuleSoft had its own robust login mechanism."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s open source, ergo free."

"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."

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

"I think the software is free."

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

"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."

More ActiveMQ pricing and cost advice

"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."

"The fee for this solution is on the higher end of the scale."

"It's a very expensive product."

"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."

"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."

"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."

"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."

"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."

More IBM MQ pricing and cost advice

"Mule Anypoint Platform pricing is slightly higher compared to Dell Boomi."

"The solution has a high price."

"The licensing is core-based. My customers tell me that it's very expensive compared to the cost of other integration suites."

"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"The tool's pricing is cheaper than other RPAs' since it is execution-based. Other RPAs charge based on subscriptions."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing as four or five out of ten."

"The product's price seems to be competent in comparison to other products in the market."

"The solution's pricing, as per the old approach, is expensive."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform 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

37%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

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 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

What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?

I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybr...

See all answers

How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration ...

See all answers

What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?

This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform f...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat AMQ vs ActiveMQ

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon SQS vs ActiveMQ

Compared 5% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs ActiveMQ

Compared 4% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs ActiveMQ

Compared 3% of the time

Apache Kafka vs ActiveMQ

Compared 3% of the time

More ActiveMQ Competitors

Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat AMQ vs IBM MQ

Compared 8% of the time

PubSub+ Platform vs IBM MQ

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs IBM MQ

Compared 5% of the time

TIBCO Enterprise Message Service vs IBM MQ

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM MQ Competitors

Redwood RunMyJobs vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Apache Kafka vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure Logic Apps vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon SQS vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveMQ

May 2025

Download ActiveMQ product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM MQ

May 2025

Download IBM MQ product report

Buyer's Guide

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

April 2025

Download MuleSoft Anypoint Platform product report

Also Known As

AMQ

WebSphere MQ

Data Integrator, Anypoint 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

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

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is used for integration and API management, connecting enterprise applications across retail, e-commerce, and supply chain. It supports cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premises scenarios with real-time and asynchronous messaging.

Users leverage MuleSoft Anypoint Platform for diverse integrations including cloud-based and on-premises, enabling data transformations, middleware functions, and hybrid integrations. It seamlessly connects systems like SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle, facilitating data transfers and integrating legacy systems. The platform offers a graphic interface, quick implementation, and a variety of connectors, contributing to its popularity for robust and scalable solutions. Despite its strengths, users seek better technical support, more connectors, simplified runtime management, and improved documentation.

What are the key features of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform?

Marketplace for integration platforms: Provides pre-built connectors and templates.
API management: Efficient management and monitoring of APIs.
Graphic interface: User-friendly design for ease of use.
Monitoring capabilities: Comprehensive monitoring and observability features.
Quick implementation: Rapid deployment of integrations and APIs.
Pre-built templates: Ready-to-use templates for common integrations.
Stability and performance: Reliable and high-performing platform.
Data transformation with DataWeave: Powerful tool for data mapping and transformation.
Support for hybrid deployments: Flexibility to integrate cloud and on-premises systems.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Increased connectivity: Seamless integration of multiple systems.
Operational efficiency: Streamlined processes and data flows.
Scalability: Ability to grow with business needs.
Cost savings: Reduced development time with pre-built components.
Enhanced visibility: Improved monitoring and management of integrations.

Enterprises in retail, e-commerce, and supply chain implement MuleSoft Anypoint Platform to connect various applications and systems. It supports real-time messaging for inventory management, synchronizes customer data across platforms, and integrates with legacy systems for smooth data migration. Users benefit from quick deployments and a marketplace that accelerates integration projects.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

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

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

VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren

Buyer's Guide

Message Queue (MQ) Software

May 2025

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