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Amazon SQS vs IBM MQ 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon SQS enhances performance and reliability, increasing productivity by reducing programming effort and labor costs, despite initial investment.
Sentiment score
6.1
IBM MQ is valued for reliability and cost savings, with returns within two years despite unclear direct financial impact.
Using Amazon SQS has led to increased productivity and reduced man-hour costs.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
It's a product which integrates the external systems with internal systems or among the systems themselves, making it an essential technology component required to integrate multiple systems.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon SQS customer service satisfaction varies, influenced by purchased support level, with premium options offering improved experiences.
Sentiment score
6.9
IBM MQ support is responsive with quick issue resolution, but some users experience delays in accessing skilled assistance.
They meet their tasks effectively.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
We cannot hold on to the project for a long time just to wait for IBM to fix the issues.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The response time for IBM MQ support could be better because when we are using IBM MQ and something goes wrong, support is required as the resource availability of the IBM product is very limited.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
With containerized flavors of these products, we are having a tough time dealing with PMRs because the versions are new to IBM.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon SQS excels in scalability and integration, though users note configuration needs and potential message duplicates.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM MQ is scalable and suitable for enterprises, though some note challenges with modernization and automation compared to cloud-native solutions.
Amazon SQS is highly scalable, automatically managing itself based on the load.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
I can easily scale up or down with Amazon SQS without any issues.
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
IBM MQ handles many thousands of messages in a second, indicating good scalability.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
In our environment, we do not have horizontal scaling for IBM MQ, but as demand increases, we would just vertically scale it.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
We've got 12 VMs running, and it's very easy to scale.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Users highly trust Amazon SQS for its stability, reliability, and performance, often preferring it over RabbitMQ and Kafka.
Sentiment score
8.1
IBM MQ is praised for stability, reliability, efficient message handling, and performance across complex environments despite occasional external issues.
With Amazon SQS, such maintenance is not needed, making it more reliable and secure.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The stability of Amazon SQS is very good, as I find it to be very stable.
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
We have never had any downtime or crashes since it's been running.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
The transaction is always guaranteed with IBM MQ, which is the main reason I have been working with it for fifteen years while dealing with financial transactions or messages.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
Otherwise, they're completely stable.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon SQS users seek better documentation, integrations, security, pricing, UI, performance, message handling, and monitoring tools.
IBM MQ users seek enhanced security, cloud integration, intuitive interfaces, performance improvements, lower pricing, and active-active clustering.
It would be beneficial if there was a provision to configure and retain messages for longer than a week.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Having a graphical user interface would improve usability.
Senior Software Test Analyst at CoCre8 Technology Solutions
The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge.
Information Technology Solution Consultant
 

Setup Cost

Amazon SQS offers a cost-effective pay-as-you-use model, but high-scale usage can increase costs compared to alternatives.
IBM MQ's pricing is high compared to open-source alternatives, though enterprise agreements and flexible licensing can reduce costs.
On a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, I would rate the pricing as one.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
It's not cheap.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It's possible to get some training, but the cost of this learning is expensive.
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
The price of IBM MQ is definitely on the higher side.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon SQS enables scalable, reliable messaging with easy AWS integration, supporting FIFO and standard queues for efficient processing.
IBM MQ offers reliable message delivery, scalability, integration, security, and ease of use, ensuring data integrity across diverse platforms.
If there's a failure in the system after consuming a message, SQS's settings ensure the message is not deleted until confirmation.
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
If we compare with other solutions such as RabbitMQ for messaging, Amazon SQS is easier to use and easier to create the queue.
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
These are financial transactions, so we do not want to lose the message at any cost.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked.
Senior System Analyst at Thakral
It's time-tested, very stable, highly resilient, and has all the features to troubleshoot even if something goes wrong.
Dev lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon SQS
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of Amazon SQS is 7.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 22.5%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ22.5%
Amazon SQS7.8%
Other69.7%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2281650 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Efficient data retention and high scalability drive significant productivity improvements
The features of Amazon SQS that I find most valuable include its data retention capabilities and message durability. The retention of data is crucial, as other systems like RabbitMQ or ActiveMQ require management. Furthermore, if there's a failure in the system after consuming a message, SQS's settings ensure the message is not deleted until confirmation. Additionally, generating FIFO and standard queues based on use cases is a helpful feature.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Message Queue (MQ) Software solutions are best for your needs.
880,511 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise147
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon SQS?
There is nothing I can remember that I would want as new features for Amazon SQS.
What is your primary use case for Amazon SQS?
If you need a messaging service to help decouple your application, Amazon SQS would be a smart choice because it's easy to use and very easy to manage.
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

EMS, NASA, BMW, Capital One
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SQS vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,511 professionals have used our research since 2012.