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ActiveMQ vs Red Hat AMQ 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
Red Hat AMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 24.2%, up from 24.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat AMQ is 9.6%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ActiveMQ24.2%
Red Hat AMQ9.6%
Other66.2%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Eyob Alemu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
SachinJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages high availability and fault tolerance for critical systems with user-friendly management features
I have experience with features such as message persistence and fault tolerance because I configured high availability and fault tolerance for the client environment, including active-active and active-passive configurations. I mainly prefer active-active. I created a security feature for user authentication and authorization in Red Hat AMQ using vault. When you enable the vault, then your whole Red Hat AMQ becomes more secure. Management is straightforward. I configured it and created documentation. The operations team takes care of the operation part. I educate them on how to manage access, so they can easily add new people who join the company or manage the people who leave. The benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring. On the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails. It also shows utilization in the tool. These features also come with other AMQs such as Amazon and IBM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides the best support services."
"The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."
"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."
"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."
"The initial setup and first deployment of ActiveMQ is fairly simple."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"This product is well adopted on the OpenShift platform. For organizations like ours that use OpenShift for many of our products, this is a good feature."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"The most valuable feature for us is the operator-based automation that is provided by Streams for infrastructure as well as user and topic management. This saves a lot of time and effort on our part to provide infrastructure. For example, the deployment of infrastructure is reduced from approximately a week to a day."
"AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
 

Cons

"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."
"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."
"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."
"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."
"I would rate the stability a five out of ten because sometimes it gets stuck, and we have to restart it. We"
"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 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."
"AI capabilities require improvement in future updates."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on. There is a tool that is somewhat connected to Kafka called Service Registry. This is a product by Red Hat that I would like to see integrated more tightly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s open source, ergo free."
"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."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"We use the open-source version."
"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"The solution is open-source."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
 

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.
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 needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The areas for improvement include cost, which is a primary concern. The deployment process is simple, but the cost is very important. Additionally, the management portal should be more user-friendl...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
For use cases for Red Hat AMQ, let's take banking purposes. This depends upon the firm or the service or product company. For example, let's take HDFC Bank or any other bank. Whenever a customer de...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat AMQ?
I work primarily with Red Hat. For IBM, I have worked with their channel partner, not directly with IBM. For Amazon, I work with partners only. I am working with one company as a consultant. I also...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
872,922 professionals have used our research since 2012.