Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 17, 2022
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (8th)
IBM MQ
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 2.6%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 4.0%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
Unique Categories:
No other categories found
Business Activity Monitoring
46.9%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
25.7%
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Sep 04, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

LP
Mar 30, 2020
Good performance and resilience, but it is complex and has a learning curve
I am a solution architect and this is one of the products that I implement for my customers Kafka works well when subscribes want to stream data for specific topics. The most valuable feature is the performance. Kafka is complex and there is a little bit of a learning curve. I have been using…
MB
Feb 23, 2023
I like MQ's simplicity and solid stability
I started using MQ on a mainframe, so I understand the thinking behind it. However, there's a lot of legacy stuff lagging behind. I think a start-up company might find the approach to be outdated. IBM could revamp the interface. The API is huge, but some developers find it limiting because of the cost. They tend to wrap the API course into the JMS, which means they're missing out on some good features. They should work a little bit on the API exposure. Support utilities are almost non-existent. MQ is dependent on third-party companies. I write everything I use, like a Linux-based command line interface for all admin stuff.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."
"A great streaming platform."
"There are numerous possibilities that can be explored. While it may be challenging to fully comprehend the potential advantages, one key aspect is the ability to establish a proper sequence of events rather than simply dealing with a jumbled group of occurrences. These events possess their own timestamps, even if they were not initially provided with one, and are arranged in a chronological order that allows for a clear understanding of the progression of the events."
"It's an open-source product, which means it doesn't cost us anything to use it."
"Apache Kafka is scalable. It is easy to add brokers."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is Kafka Connect."
"The stability is very nice. We currently manage 50 million events daily."
"Kafka can process messages in real-time, making it useful for applications that require near-instantaneous processing."
"Combined with IBM MQ, this product is our primary data store."
"We like IBM MQ for our synchronous communications and transactional applications that require a lot of CPS."
"The most valuable feature is the interaction within the system."
"I like the architecture it provides seamlessly for assured delivery."
"It's ability to scale, it's ability to do guaranteed delivery and it's ability to do point-to-point of what we subscribe are the most valuable features."
"Currently, we are not using many advanced features. We are only using point-to-point MQ. I have previously used features like context-based authentication, SSL authentication, and high availability. These are good and pretty cool features. They make your business reliable. For critical business needs, everyone uses only IBM MQ. It is the first choice because of its reliability. There is a one-send-and-one-delivery feature. It also has a no-message-loss feature, and because of that, only IBM MQ is used in banking or financial sectors."
"The message queue and the integration with any development platform/language, i.e., NET and Java, are the most valuable features."
"What is quite useful is the asynchronous function which means we don't lose everything in the bank. Although we use a lot of things synchronously, asynch is the best thing so that no banking information is ever lost, even when the network goes down and comes up."
 

Cons

"More Windows support, I believe, is one area where it can improve."
"Maintaining and configuring Apache Kafka can be challenging, especially when you want to fine-tune its behavior."
"Managing Apache Kafka can be a challenge, but there are solutions. I used the newest release, as it seems they have removed Zookeeper, which should make it easier. Confluent provides a fully managed Kafka platform, in which the cluster does not need to be managed."
"The solution's initial setup process was complex."
"It's not possible to substitute IBM MQ with Apache Kafka because the JMS part is not very stable."
"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 price for the enterprise version is quite high. It would be better to have a lower price."
"The ability to connect the producers and consumers must be improved."
"SonicMQ CAA (continuous availability architecture) functionality on auto failover and data persistence should be made available without a shared drive, as it exists in multi-instance queue managers."
"It could get a face lift with a modern marketing campaign."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"There are things within the actual product itself that can be improved, such as limitations on message length, size, etc. There is no standardized message length outside of IBM. Each of the implementations of the MQ series or support of that functionality varies between various suppliers, and because of that, it is very difficult to move from one to the other. We have IBM MQ, but we couldn't use it because the platform that was speaking to MQ didn't support the message length that was standard within IBM MQ. So, we had to use a different product to do exactly the same thing. So, perhaps, there could be more flexibility in the standards around the message queue. If we had been able to increase the message queue size within the IBM MQ implementation, we wouldn't have had to go over to another competing product because the system that was using MQ messaging required the ability to hold messages that were far larger than the IBM MQ standard. So, there could be a bit more flexibility in the structuring. It has as such nothing to do with the IBM implementation of MQ. It is just that the standard that is being put out onto the market doesn't actually stipulate those types of things."
"The user interface should be enhanced to include more monitoring features and other metrics. The metrics should include not only those from the IBM MQ point of view but also CPU and memory utilization."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"I have used the support from IBM MQ. There is some room for improvement."
"It's hard to put in a nutshell, but it's sort of developed as more of an on-premise solution. It hasn't moved much away from that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"It is open source software."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"This is an open-source version."
"The license for IBM MQ is commercial and not cheap. You get a multi-platform solution, which is important because it lets you connect systems on mainframes, personal solutions, Unix, Linux, etc."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
"It's a very expensive product."
"IBM is expensive."
"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."
"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Sep 4, 2023
Sep 4, 2023
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 users. This tool has great scalability with high throughput and a very helpful supportive online community. However, Kafka does not provide control over the message queue, so it is difficult to know wheth...
2 out of 3 answers
Oct 31, 2021
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 users. This tool has great scalability with high throughput and a very helpful supportive online community. However, Kafka does not provide control over the message queue, so it is difficult to know whether messages are being delivered, lost, or duplicated. We would like to see more adapters for connecting to different systems made available. I think this would be a better product if the graphical user interface was easier. The manual calculations needed for this solution can be difficult. If the process was automated, it would be a much better product. IBM MQ has a very strong reputation and is very robust with great stability. This solution is easy to use, simple to configure, and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocols. IBM ensures message delivery. You can track and trace everything. If a message doesn’t arrive at its destination, it will go back to the queue; this ensures no message is ever lost. This is a huge selling point for us. IBM MQ does not handle huge volume very well, though. There are some limitations to the queues. If these limitations could be relaxed, it would be a better product for us. You have to license per application and installation, so scaling up can get very costly very quickly. Conclusion Apache Kafka is a cost-effective solution for high-volume, multi-source data collection. If you are in a high-growth trajectory and if total message accountability and tracking is not a huge issue for you, this solution may work well for you. IBM MQ is a licensed product and can be very expensive, it also does not scale easily, which can be very problematic. IBM MQ requires a definite skillset that not many people have, which can be an issue for some and it affects the fast responsive support of this solution.
GT
Sep 14, 2022
The choice depends on your use case.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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...
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...
What do you like most about IBM MQ?
The feature I find most effective for ensuring message delivery without loss is the backup threshold. This feature allows for automatic retries of transactional messages within a specified threshold.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.