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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
7th
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 August 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of ActiveMQ is 26.2%, up from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat AMQ is 9.4%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Sther Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-learn solution that can be used with microservices
We have done around 20 projects in Red Hat AMQ. I have two projects using Red Hat AMQ, and I can share how its scalability has impacted them. In one project, we have a solution for authentication and authorization using SSO. We need to integrate with other systems in two ways. We use Red Hat AMQ for social data, sending messages to other queues, and integrating with business. We have two databases with the same information. The solution is good because it helps us solve problems with messaging. For instance, when messaging doesn't change, we still check the cloud and verify the information. In another project, we have a large banking solution for the Amazon region using Red Hat AMQ for financial transactions. In this solution, business messages are sent, and another system processes them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to store the failed events for some time is valuable."
"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"Most people or many people recommended using ActiveMQ on small and medium-scale applications."
"It provides the best support services."
"ActiveMQ brings the most value to small applications because it will not cost you very much to complete."
"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."
"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."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"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."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"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, and it also shows utilization in the tool."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"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."
 

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."
"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."
"This solution could improve by providing better documentation."
"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."
"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."
"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."
"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 solution's stability needs improvement."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"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."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"I think the software is free."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable and competitive compared to other solutions."
"We use the open-source version."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The solution is open-source."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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.
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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.