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IBM MQ vs Red Hat AMQ 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 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)
Red Hat AMQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 27.1%, up from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat AMQ is 9.7%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sther Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-learn solution that can be used with microservices
We have done around 20 projects in Red Hat AMQ. I have two projects using Red Hat AMQ, and I can share how its scalability has impacted them. In one project, we have a solution for authentication and authorization using SSO. We need to integrate with other systems in two ways. We use Red Hat AMQ for social data, sending messages to other queues, and integrating with business. We have two databases with the same information. The solution is good because it helps us solve problems with messaging. For instance, when messaging doesn't change, we still check the cloud and verify the information. In another project, we have a large banking solution for the Amazon region using Red Hat AMQ for financial transactions. In this solution, business messages are sent, and another system processes them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Secure, safe, and very fast."
"I appreciate the level of control we have over queue managers, queues, and the messaging itself. That provides good security. So, the control and scalability of messaging are important to me."
"The message queue and the integration with any development platform/language, i.e., NET and Java, are the most valuable features."
"IBM MQ processes many thousands of messages in a second, which is efficient for handling high transaction volumes."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I would rate the solution ten out of ten because I have been working on it for the past fifteen years."
"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."
"Using a message queuing solution, we had a banking solution that integrated multiple branches and interbank systems. Different systems for credits, debits, CRM, and others communicated through this message queue solution. It wasn't just about communication; for instance, a CRM application needed to collect information from various banking systems, such as account balances, properties, contracts, and credit cards."
"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."
"Red Hat AMQ's best feature is its reliability."
"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."
"The solution is very lightweight, easy to configure, simple to manage, and robust since it launched."
"My impression is that it is average in terms of scalability."
"I can organize the tool with microservices, which allows me to use it across different services. It is easy to learn."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"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."
 

Cons

"The GUI part could be better."
"They probably need to virtualize the MQ flow and allow us to design the MQ flow using the UI. It would also help to migrate to the cloud easily and implement AWS Lambda functions with minimum coding. If you have to code, then just with NodeJS or Java."
"There are no improvements needed at this time."
"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."
"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."
"IBM MQ could improve capacity, monitoring, and automatization."
"It would be nice to have AI features and an updated graphical user interface."
"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."
"AMQ could be better integrated with Jira and patch management tools."
"Red Hat AMQ's cost could be improved, and it could have better integration."
"This product needs better visualization capabilities in general."
"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."
"The challenge is the multiple components it has. This brings a higher complexity compared to IBM MQ, which is a single complete unit."
"There is improvement needed to keep the support libraries updated."
"The product needs to improve its documentation and training."
"The turnaround of adopting new versions of underlying technologies sometimes is too slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."
"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."
"The price of IBM MQ could improve by being less expensive."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"The solution is open-source."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Red Hat AMQ's pricing could be improved."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Red Hat AMQ?
The product needs to improve its documentation and training.
What is your primary use case for Red Hat AMQ?
We just started working with Red Hat AMQ. We selected it as the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) platform for a new airport project. I manage the entire Master System Integration (MSI) project for one ...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat AMQ?
I didn't have any problems using Red Hat AMQ and would recommend it. The documentation is good, and I encountered no issues during installation. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, Red Hat JBoss AMQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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 IBM MQ vs. Red Hat AMQ and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.