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ActiveMQ vs Redis comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (2nd)
Redis
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (5th), Managed NoSQL Databases (8th), In-Memory Data Store Services (1st), Vector Databases (3rd), AI Software Development (16th)
 

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.
KG
Database Admin and Architect at D-EDGE Hospitality Solutions
Performance shines with seamless session caching and minimal configuration
The best features of Redis, from my personal perspective, are the performance, which is very quick, and it's very simple to implement. Since I started using Redis, I feel that the product is saving me some performance tuning time. It's very easy, I have few parameters to tune, and it seems to have performance without a lot of working on the performance, compared to Cassandra, where you have to configure the memory and many other settings. The integration capability of Redis is excellent. Redis is very affordable because it's free.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Most people or many people recommended using ActiveMQ on small and medium-scale applications."
"ActiveMQ demonstrates excellent stability and sturdiness."
"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."
"The initial setup and first deployment of ActiveMQ is fairly simple."
"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."
"ActiveMQ is very lightweight and quick."
"The initial setup is straightforward and only takes a few minutes."
"For reliable messaging, the most valuable feature of ActiveMQ for us is ensuring prompt message delivery."
"Since I started using Redis, I feel that the product is saving me some performance tuning time."
"The online interface is very fast and easy to use."
"Redis is a simple service that does what it promises."
"Redis is better tested and is used by large companies. I haven't found a direct alternative to what Redis offers. Plus, there are a lot of support and learning resources available, which help you use Redis efficiently."
"Redis provides an easy setup and operation process, allowing users to quickly connect and use it without hassle."
"It is particularly efficient for cloud-based storage and operations."
"The in-memory data makes it fast."
"The performance of Redis is very fast."
 

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."
"It does not scale out well. It ends up being very complex if you have a lot of mirror queues."
"We need to enhance stability and improve the deployment optimization to fully leverage the platform's capabilities."
"The solution can improve the other protocols to equal the AMQ protocol they offer."
"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."
"Message Management: Better management of the messages. Perhaps persist them, or put in another queue with another life cycle."
"This solution could improve by providing better documentation."
"Needs to focus on a certain facet and be good at it, instead of handling support for most of the available message brokers."
"It's actually quite expensive."
"If we use a lot of data, it will eventually cost us a lot."
"The solution's pricing for a local installation is very expensive."
"There are some features from MongoDB that I would like to see included in Redis to enhance its overall efficiency, such as the ability to perform remote behaviour. MongoDB is more efficient in handling updates than deletions and is quicker in processing updates, but it can be slower regarding deletions. This can sometimes pose a challenge, especially when dealing with large datasets or frequent data manipulations that involve deletions. In such cases, I often rewrite columns or update values instead of directly deleting data, as it can be more efficient."
"Redis could be improved by introducing a GUI to display key-value pair database information, as it is currently a CLI tool with no visual representation."
"The initial setup of Redis was difficult, with a rating of two or three out of ten."
"There is a lack of documentation on the scalability of the solution."
"The development of clusters could improve. Additionally, it would be helpful if it was integrated with Amazon AWS or Google Cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source version, so we have not looked at any pricing."
"I think the software is free."
"I use open source with standard Apache licensing."
"It’s open source, ergo free."
"ActiveMQ is open source, so it is free to use."
"The solution is less expensive than its competitors."
"We use the open-source version."
"There are no fees because it is open-source."
"Redis is an open-source solution. There are not any hidden fees."
"We saw an ROI. It made the processing of our transactions faster."
"Redis is not an overpriced solution."
"Redis is an open-source product."
"The tool is open-source. There are no additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
6%
 

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 Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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 do you like most about Redis?
Redis is better tested and is used by large companies. I haven't found a direct alternative to what Redis offers. Plus, there are a lot of support and learning resources available, which help you u...
What needs improvement with Redis?
The disadvantage of Redis is that it's a little bit hard to have too many clusters or too many nodes and create the clusters. The sync between the nodes is easier to implement with Couchbase, for e...
What is your primary use case for Redis?
Redis is used for a part of a booking engine for travel, specifically for the front part to get some sessions and information about the sessions. If a customer or user is using the sites in differe...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AMQ
Redis Enterprise
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Washington, Daugherty Systems, CSC, STG Technologies, Inc. 
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Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveMQ vs. Redis and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.