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IBM Event Streams 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Event Streams
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
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
172
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM Event Streams is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.5%, up from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ25.5%
IBM Event Streams1.1%
Other73.4%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.
David Pizinger - PeerSpot reviewer
Has faced unexpected VM restarts but continues to deliver messages reliably
I'm not sure if we've utilized IBM MQ's high availability. Our MQ VMs are set up in clusters, and I think our queue managers are set up in pairs. However, I don't know if we actually use any specific high availability features of IBM MQ that are out of the box. We have it architected with high availability because we use F5 load balancers, and everything about our architecture is highly available. I haven't personally used the management tools with IBM MQ, but we do have them, and our middleware folks leverage them. I can't really comment on them because I don't use them myself. I don't think the management tools help optimize message flows, and I'm not really aware of how they help in this. I'm not familiar with dynamic routing for IBM MQ.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"The stability has been good."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"Whenever payments are happening, such as incoming payments to the bank, we need to notify the customer. With MQ we can actually do that asynchronously. We don't want to notify the customer for each and every payment but, rather, more like once a day. That kind of thing can be enabled with the help of MQ."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"It is quite stable."
"It is very robust and very scalable."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"The best thing about IBM MQ solution is that it's guaranteed delivery and it's fast."
"We like IBM MQ for our synchronous communications and transactional applications that require a lot of CPS."
"The most valuable feature is the Queue Manager, which lies in the middle between our application and our core banking server."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"It could provide more monitoring tools and some improvement to the UI. I would also like to see more throughput in future versions."
"It is expensive. The cost is high. There should be more improvement in the new age of technologies."
"IBM MQ is not very user-friendly."
"IBM MQ has limitations regarding scaling options. The licensing costs associated with scaling up and down were significant, which is why we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka."
"I would just like a more user-friendly experience to do common administration tasks. I know that you can use MQ Explorer, but having something that's already built in would definitely be useful."
"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."
"I would like to see faster monitoring tools for this solution."
"The GUI part could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is averagely priced."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"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."
"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
"There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries."
"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."
"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise146
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Event Streams?
The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Event Streams?
The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Event Streams?
The product's interface needs improvement. Additionally, there could be a management console to create and manage clusters.
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

American Airlines, UBank, Bitly, Eurobits, Active International, Bison, Contextor, Constance Hotels, Resorts & Golf, Creval, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, FaceMe, FacePhi, Fitzsoft, Fuga Technologies, Guardio, Honeywell, Japanese airline, Jenzabar, KONE
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Event Streams vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.