No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Apache Kafka vs Red Hat AMQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (5th)
Red Hat AMQ
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and Red Hat AMQ aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 4.0%, up 2.8% compared to last year.
Red Hat AMQ, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 6.8% mindshare, down 9.5% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
Apache Flink8.9%
Databricks8.1%
Other79.0%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat AMQ6.8%
IBM MQ21.0%
ActiveMQ19.8%
Other52.4%
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.
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

"I like the performance and reliability of Kafka. I needed a data streaming buffer that could handle thousands of messages per second with at least one processing point for an analytics pipeline. Kafka fits this requirement very well."
"One of the most valuable features I have found is Kafka Connect."
"Apache Kafka has helped our client's online restaurant company by allowing them to take any orders and send the notifications with some other details, such as logic commands, to the different microservices."
"The solution has allowed us to take the use cases provided by another communication tool and resolve those issues."
"Apache Kafka is one of the best open-source solutions that are available today."
"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."
"The most valuable feature is the documentation, which is good and clear."
"It's an open-source product, which means it doesn't cost us anything to use it."
"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, and it also shows utilization in the tool."
"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."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature for us is the operator-based automation that is provided by Streams for infrastructure as well as user and topic management. This saves a lot of time and effort on our part to provide infrastructure. For example, the deployment of infrastructure is reduced from approximately a week to a day."
"Reliability is the main criterion for selecting this tool for one of the busiest airports in Mumbai."
"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."
"AMQ is highly scalable and performs well. It can process a large volume of messages in one second. AMQ and OpenShift are a good combination."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
 

Cons

"If the graphical user interface was easier for the Kafka administration it would be much better. Right now, you need to use the program with the command-line interface. If the graphical user interface was easier, it could be a better product."
"For the original Kafka, there is room for improvement in terms of latency spikes and resource consumption. It consumes a lot of memory."
"More Windows support, I believe, is one area where it can improve."
"Config management can be better. We are always trying to find the best configs, which is a challenge."
"Scalability may cause issues in the product if my nodes are full with multiple sources and delivery is slowing down."
"The product could be improved with proper documentation."
"We used to have problems in Kafka every three weeks and our dev ops team fixed a few issues."
"More adapters for connecting to different systems need to be available."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"There are some aspects of the monitoring that could be improved on. There is a tool that is somewhat connected to Kafka called Service Registry. This is a product by Red Hat that I would like to see integrated more tightly."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"There are several areas in this solution that need improvement, including clustering multi-nodes and message ordering."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"It's a bit cheaper compared to other Q applications."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"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."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"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."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"This is a very cost-effective solution and the pricing is much better than competitors."
"There is a subscription needed for this solution and there are support plans available."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"The solution is open-source."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise50
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 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?
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 seven days.
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 very important. Additionally, the management portal should be more user-friendl...
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 company. For example, let's take HDFC Bank or any other bank. Whenever a customer de...
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, I work with partners only. I am working with one company as a consultant. I also...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
E*TRADE, CERN, CenturyLink, AECOM, Sabre Holdings
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.