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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM Event Streams is 0.9%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.9%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ26.9%
IBM Event Streams0.9%
Other72.2%
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.
Md Al-Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and secure performance consistently enhances message transfer
IBM MQ is more reliable and secure than other software. There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked. It is more secure and reliable. Whenever the configuration is done, I do not have to touch it again. It works fine, it is stable, and its communication is to the point and accurate. All performance-related aspects are better. Performance-wise, it is scalable, and other features such as DR, DC, replication, and active passive mode are complex to configure, but it remains scalable. The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability has been good."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"IBM MQ's flexibility has sped up our active communication."
"The solution is very stable."
"On a scale of 1-10, I rate IBM MQ a nine."
"There is no dependency on the end party service's run status."
"The reliability of the queuing is the most valuable feature."
"The message queue and the integration with any development platform/language, i.e., NET and Java, are the most valuable features."
"The solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
 

Cons

"The product's interface needs improvement."
"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."
"It needs a User Interface which is better than the aging MQ Explorer. The existing solution MQ Explorer is outdated."
"The scalability is the one area where IBM has fallen behind. As much as it is used, there is a limit to the number of people who are skilled in MQ. That is definitely an issue. Places have kept their MQ-skilled people and other places have really struggled to get MQ skills. It's not a widely-known skillset."
"It could get a face lift with a modern marketing campaign."
"The clustering capabilities have provided some difficulties when it comes to resiliency. This has been a challenge for managing the environment."
"We need to have a better administration console and better monitoring features. Right now, they are not good and could be a lot better."
"The main issue we are having with the solution is due to the connection dropouts which have been going on for a long time now."
"The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box."
"It could always be more stable and secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The platform is averagely priced."
"Small-scale companies may not want to buy IBM MQ because of its high cost."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"The price of IBM MQ could improve by being less expensive."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Retailer
13%
Hospitality Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise144
 

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: July 2025.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.