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Amazon SNS vs IBM MQ 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

Amazon SNS
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) category, the mindshare of Amazon SNS is 4.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 16.5%, down from 28.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM MQ16.5%
Amazon SNS4.9%
Other78.6%
Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
 

Featured Reviews

VK
Technical Trainer at DIEMS Chh.Sambhajinagar
Event-driven alerts have automated incident response and support real-time campus workflows
Amazon SNS helps with microservices decoupling and SaaS scalability in our projects. When Lambda triggers, a proper notification is provided to the faculty or student, which is generated automatically due to the Lambda function. Amazon SNS has many features, including message filtering, multi-protocol support, security and compliance, and global reach. Beyond Lambda triggers and microservices communication, Amazon SNS shines with all these features. It is not just a notification tool; it is a versatile backbone for an event-driven system. Amazon SNS has impacted our organization positively due to all the notifications. For example, when a student uploads a file to Amazon S3, Amazon SNS immediately publishes an event that triggers a Lambda function, which scans the file for security, processes metadata, or even sends a notification to faculty. This automation ensures real-time processing without manual intervention, and it is something emphasized in training sessions as a practical DevOps workflow.
MK
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
Reliable payment processing is achieved with minimal disruption
Currently, we have some disadvantages; it's a bit difficult to use IBM ID to access support from the IBM site. To get nice support from IBM, we need to use IBM ID, and it's a bit complicated to integrate it with IBM support. Support can be better because sometimes we need explanations for some behaviors of the product, and it's not easy to reach the proper person in IBM support. They could add some new features into IBM MQ to make it better. A graphical user interface in addition to MQ Explorer could be useful, but we are satisfied with MQ Explorer as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A clear return on investment has been achieved after adopting Amazon SNS for automation and microservices communication."
"We use this solution because the integration between the features is excellent."
"The best aspect of this solution is its simplicity. We just have to create topics and can have as many subscriptions as we want under any topic we create."
"Since moving to SNS push notifications, we have had a lot better coverage."
"It's a simple communication service that allows us to communicate with customers."
"Overall, I am very happy with this service."
"Stability has been good for us. It is quite high."
"It's a simple communication service that allows us to communicate with customers."
"The solution is rock-solid and stable."
"We have implemented business to business transactions over MQ messaging. The guaranteed and once only delivery ensures business integrity."
"The most valuable feature is the Queue Manager, which lies in the middle between our application and our core banking server."
"It is easy to use and seamless with our existing technology."
"The methodology and the way in which the platform has been produced as a standard is most valuable."
"The solution offers very good features, including listener channels, remote queues, and transmit queues."
"The biggest advantage about us using messaging is that we can connect to most of the financial customers across the globe securely and data is always sent only once, asynchronously as well as synchronously."
"I like the architecture it provides seamlessly for assured delivery."
 

Cons

"I recently worked with Firebase, and it provides an option to create a marketing campaign with a title and a specific image to inform our audience about something. We just design the campaign and then use the push notifications. It would be good if Amazon also adds a similar feature."
"There needs to be more documentation on the integration with different platforms."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to have better customer support for SNS."
"Messages should flow through a gateway without the need for a mediator."
"Amazon SNS is strong, but there are a few areas where it could be improved."
"There could be more integration with other solutions."
"In future releases, I want to see if the platforms that SMS can reach. It would be a good way to improve it. More platforms to be able to use it."
"There needs to be more documentation on the integration with different platforms."
"It would be great if the dashboard had additional features like a board design."
"Technical support needs to be faster and more knowledgeable."
"The clustering capabilities have provided some difficulties when it comes to resiliency; this has been a challenge for managing the environment."
"In the next release, I would like for there to be easier monitoring. The UI should be easier for non-technical users to set up appliances and servers."
"Scaling is difficult with IBM MQ."
"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 would be an advantage if they can include streaming in IBM MQ, similar to Kafka. Kafka is used mainly for streaming purposes. This feature is clearly lacking in IBM MQ. If they add this feature to IBM MQ, it will have an edge over other products."
"With IBM products, there's less marketing. If they do more demos and more seminars on their products, it will be very useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon SNS is cheap and I would rate it a three out of ten. The pricing is usage-based."
"One can use the tool for free."
"It is the cheapest solution in the market. It is on a monthly basis. After a month, you are build based on your usage. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"The solution has no up-front costs because you pay based on the number of messages you publish."
"The pricing of push notifications and everything is quite fair. If you are using FCM under the hood, it is completely free. When you are using push notification on SMS, it is just a nominal price that you need to pay. SMS services are a lot more costly. It is because we don't have proper providers in India. That's why it gets a lot more costly in terms of SMS. This is the reason why we don't use SMS services from SNS itself. We use other third-party services like SMS Horizon. We use a third-party service for email services. It is almost free. It is just around $1 a month. Configuring Lambda is also quite cheap. You only pay for the Lambda usage. You don't pay for SNS itself."
"Their pricing is competitive. I would rate the cost four out of five."
"The pricing is very cheap."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"It's a very expensive product."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
"The price is high."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise147
 

Questions from the Community

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What is MQ software?
Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" solutions that have come into the market place. From my perspective, while each pro...
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...
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, simple to configure and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocol...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PlayOn! Sports, NASA, Change Healthcare, FCBarcelona
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.