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Amazon MQ vs Apache Kafka comparison

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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

Amazon MQ
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (7th)
Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Amazon MQ and Apache Kafka aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Amazon MQ is designed for Message Queue (MQ) Software and holds a mindshare of 3.9%, up 3.7% compared to last year.
Apache Kafka, on the other hand, focuses on Streaming Analytics, holds 3.8% mindshare, up 3.5% since last year.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon MQ3.9%
IBM MQ21.0%
ActiveMQ20.1%
Other55.0%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka3.8%
Databricks7.5%
Apache Flink7.5%
Other81.2%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

RamilCerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at SM Supermalls
Has provided consistent functionality across on-premise and cloud while simplifying cloud integration
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-month free trial of a single instance, allowing per month usage of either ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ, five gig of Amazon EFS storage, and for ActiveMQ, it's 20 gig of Amazon EBS storage for RabbitMQ. I did not purchase Amazon MQ through AWS Marketplace. Amazon MQ has published information about having 650 hours of free trial usage. This can be found via the AWS website by searching for AWS MQ. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon MQ an eight out of ten.
Amandeep Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
Event-driven architecture has improved asynchronous communication and supports high throughput
We can improve the high throughput because there are some limitations. We could add something to improve Apache Kafka. Based on my daily usage and analysis, there is a complex setup and management, which is one area requiring improvement. Apache Kafka does not have built-in message delay or scheduling capabilities. Apache Kafka cannot natively schedule messages. Limited message prioritization is also an area requiring improvement. Ordering is limited to a single partition. Large messages affect performance. Apache Kafka is optimized for many small to medium-sized messages, but large payloads increase network usage, increase disk usage, and slow down producers and consumers. I rate Apache Kafka eight out of ten instead of ten out of ten because operating an Apache Kafka cluster requires expertise in partitioning, application monitoring, and capacity planning. Self-managed deployment can become complex as the cluster grows. Pro-managed Apache Kafka services significantly reduce the operational overhead.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon MQ is a very scalable solution."
"Amazon MQ is a secure solution."
"The initial Amazon MQ setup is very easy both when you do it on your own or use the self-managed instance."
"Amazon MQ is managed by AWS and is easy to use."
"Amazon MQ is important for being collaborative, allowing for centralized information."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its managed service aspect. It's simple to implement and use. It requires minimal effort to maintain business operations."
"We have found Amazon MQ to provide scalability, robustness, and security."
"Since we utilize AWS, it's easy to integrate Amazon MQ and work with other third-party software, as they have standard communications via API or native language."
"Apache Kafka has helped out the organization because we leverage it for all our eCommerce real-time analytics use cases."
"I like Kafka's flexibility, stability, reliability, and robustness."
"Ease of use."
"The solution is stable, and the most fantastic thing about it is its throughput."
"Apache Kafka has became our main component on almost all our distributed solutions."
"With such a large digest, I was genuinely impressed at the process being almost real-time."
"I believe that the speed, and especially the performance, are very good features."
"Apache Kafka has improved our organization because it's more reliable than Rabbit."
 

Cons

"The product should improve its monitoring capabilities. It needs to improve the pricing also."
"In community support, especially with distributed systems and integration, there is a need for better system organization."
"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"If Amazon provided a templating engine, it would be great."
"On a scale of one to 10, one being the best and 10 being the worst, I would give Amazon MQ an eight for overall performance."
"Monitoring capabilities are not yet fully developed, since it's a message broker service, so it focuses more on the health of Apache."
"Amazon MQ is a good solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. It's open-source software, which means it's cheaper than its competitors."
"The solution needs improvement in the back end and security."
"I suggest using cloud services because the solution is expensive if you are using it on-premises."
"The solution can improve by having automation for developers. We have done many manual calculations and it has been difficult but if it was automated it would be much better."
"The ability to connect the producers and consumers must be improved."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"Kafka requires non-trivial expertise with DevOps to deploy in production at scale. The organization needs to understand ZooKeeper and Kafka and should consider using additional tools, such as MirrorMaker, so that the organization can survive an availability zone or a region going down."
"We haven't seen a return on investment with Apache Kafka. It's used for a specific use case rather than cost reduction."
"The management overhead is more compared to the messaging system. There are challenges here and there. Like for long usage, it requires restarts and nodes from time to time."
"The speed isn't as fast as RabbitMQ, even though the solution touts itself as very quick."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Depending on your use cases, Amazon MQ can be cheap or expensive."
"As a client or as an end user, I would say that Google Cloud Storage or Google Cloud are cheaper than Amazon MQ."
"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"I was using the product's free version."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"When starting to look at a distributed message system, look for a cloud solution first. It is an easier entry point than an on-premises hardware solution."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"The cost can vary depending on the provider and the specific flavor or version you use. I'm not very knowledgeable about the pricing details."
"This is an open-source version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon MQ?
Amazon MQ needs to have data collected on performance to analyze trends for improvement. Additionally, some tools can suggest how to improve performance in terms of speed, time, and processing, whi...
What is your primary use case for Amazon MQ?
I have some experience working with Amazon MQ.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon MQ?
I have experience with on-premise setups using ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ, but with regards to AWS, I use it via cloud only. There's a free tier with Amazon MQ based on their website, which is a six-mon...
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 used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Based on my understanding for the setup and cost to set up Apache Kafka, I was not responsible for the pricing or licensing decisions. Apache Kafka itself is open source and free to use. Infrastruc...
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
We can improve the high throughput because there are some limitations. We could add something to improve Apache Kafka. Based on my daily usage and analysis, there is a complex setup and management,...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SkipTheDishes, Malmberg, Dealer.com, Bench Accounting
Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Apache, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Message Queue (MQ) Software. Updated: August 2026.
911,549 professionals have used our research since 2012.