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Apache Kafka vs IBM MQ vs Red Hat AMQ 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.2%
Apache Flink10.9%
Databricks9.0%
Other75.9%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM MQ22.7%
ActiveMQ22.0%
Red Hat AMQ8.4%
Other46.9%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat AMQ8.4%
IBM MQ22.7%
ActiveMQ22.0%
Other46.9%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Bruno da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
Have worked closely with the team to deploy streaming and transaction pipelines in a flexible cloud environment
The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better. I started working with Apache Kafka from its early days, and I have seen many improvements. The back office functionality could be enhanced. Scaling up continues to be a challenge, though it is much easier now than it was in the beginning.
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.
SachinJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Specialist at Intuitive Technology Partners
Efficiently manages high availability and fault tolerance for critical systems with user-friendly management features
I have experience with features such as message persistence and fault tolerance because I configured high availability and fault tolerance for the client environment, including active-active and active-passive configurations. I mainly prefer active-active. I created a security feature for user authentication and authorization in Red Hat AMQ using vault. When you enable the vault, then your whole Red Hat AMQ becomes more secure. Management is straightforward. I configured it and created documentation. The operations team takes care of the operation part. I educate them on how to manage access, so they can easily add new people who join the company or manage the people who leave. The benefits of using Red Hat AMQ include easy configuration and monitoring. On the portal, I can monitor how many packets or alerts have been generated or sent to the end user via Red Hat AMQ along with messages or emails. It also shows utilization in the tool. These features also come with other AMQs such as Amazon and IBM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has become dead simple to connect different application and services, saving a lot of development hours."
"Performance-wise, Kafka is better than any of the other products."
"Excellent speeds for publishing messages faster."
"Kafka is a highly scalable product."
"The main advantage is increased reliability, particularly with regard to data and the speed with which messages are published to the other side."
"Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing."
"In my view, valuable features relate to microservices architecture and working on KStream and KSQL DB as a microservices event bus."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is the clustering which is very easy to scale and we have multiple servers all over our platforms."
"I have found that the solution scales well."
"This solution offers good performance as well as scalability and stability."
"Reliability is the most valuable feature."
"It's good for messaging, very reliable, and forward compatible, so it makes our life easy when it comes to upgrades."
"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."
"IBM MQ is the right choice because of the stability and the performance. And from the support perspective, it's enough to have a really small team."
"Integrates between distributed systems: For example, it can help integrate processing between mainframe, client-server, web-based applications by integrating the messages, supporting Service Oriented Architecture."
"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."
"The self-service aspect is very important for us, and AMQ Streams has enabled us to deliver new services faster, going from days to hours."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"This product is well adopted on the OpenShift platform. For organizations like ours that use OpenShift for many of our products, this is a good feature."
"From the functionality perspective, 3scale provides a very comparable, if not the same feature set as any leader in the market for API management and the gateway perspective, but with a fraction of the price."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
 

Cons

"This product guarantees at-least-once delivery."
"There are some latency problems with Kafka."
"Kafka can allow for duplicates, which isn't as helpful in some of our scenarios."
"We haven't seen a return on investment with Apache Kafka. It's used for a specific use case rather than cost reduction."
"The ability to connect the producers and consumers must be improved."
"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."
"We struggled a bit with the built-in data transformations because it was a challenge to get them up and running the way we wanted."
"Apache Kafka could improve data loss and compatibility with Spark."
"It would be nice if we could use the cluster facilities because we are doing active/passive configuration use."
"It could always be more stable and secure."
"Customer support response times could be improved."
"If it was a little bit more user friendly, or more gen-x friendly maybe, that would be the best benefit."
"the level of training as well as product marketing for this product are not that great. You rarely find a good training institute that provides training. Many of the architects in several organization are neither aware of the product nor interested in using it. IBM should provide good training on products like this."
"In some cases, when a file got transferred, it has same name on both sides. That could have something to do with the product or it could have to do with something else."
"The solution should offer a freeware version, free vouchers, or certifications for learning purposes and building a knowledge base."
"What could be improved is the high-availability. The way MQ works is that it separates the high-availability from the workload balance. The scalability should be easier. If something happens so that the messages are not available on each node, scalability is only possible for the workload balance."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"We use the free version."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"Apache Kafka is an open-sourced solution. There are fees if you want the support, and I would recommend it for enterprises. There are annual subscriptions available."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"The price of IBM MQ could improve by being less expensive."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
"It's super expensive, so ask them if they can consolidate some other licensing costs. But, IBM is IBM, so I guess we'll pay for it."
"You have to license per application installation and if you expand vertically or horizontally, you will be paying for more licenses. The licenses are approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a license, it can get expensive quite quickly."
"Pricing could be better, as with all IBM products. But their performance in production, along with security and scalability, will pay returns in the long run."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"The solution is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise147
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
The long-term data storage feature in Apache Kafka depends on the setting, but I believe the maximum duration is seve...
What is MQ software?
Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" sol...
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, si...
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 al...
What needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The areas for improvement include cost, which is a primary concern. The deployment process is simple, but the cost is...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
For use cases for Red Hat AMQ, let's take banking purposes. This depends upon the firm or the service or product comp...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat AMQ?
I work primarily with Red Hat. For IBM, I have worked with their channel partner, not directly with IBM. For Amazon, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: March 2026.
885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.