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IBM MQ vs Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
Software AG Optimize for In...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 20.7%, down from 42.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure is 3.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM MQ20.7%
Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure3.9%
Other75.4%
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

David Pizinger - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
RK
Vice President - Digital Integration at Kellton Tech Solutions Limited
Mature, stable, and powerful managed platform
Sometimes Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure goes through an upgrade cycle of four years to get to the next version. Some of the utilities need to be definitely advanced as well so that migration to the latest version is even smoother and easier. That could probably be the only improvements that they can look at. I definitely think that their cloud version capabilities are still nascent. They need to evolve into offering similar capabilities to the cloud infrastructure as well. That is not specifically SaaS but any managed infrastructure that customers would subscribe to in AWS, Azure, and other public clouds. How to employ Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure and also to see if it can be subscribed as a service from Software AG would be the ideal next steps for this solution to evolve into.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's reliable."
"The most valuable features are the point to point messaging and the MQ API."
"My application may not always be running, yet even if it is off, whenever I stick on my applications, I get all the messages that I'm supposed to get."
"The thing that I like about MQ most is its reliability. It's one of those types of products that just works. You don't have to tinker around with it too much."
"Definitely, you should use IBM MQ because it is a stable product and provides a wide interface with different systems."
"MQ is a really good tool to be able to send messages back and forth between multiple platforms."
"We have found the MQ messaging topologies valuable."
"It's a great product."
"It kind of alleviates all the complexity in the IT support and service teams, and it will make their life easier."
"The infrastructure monitoring features are the most valuable. The primary purpose of Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure is to automate the aspects of monitoring various infrastructure and applications. They will definitely automate an alert automatically, but a lot of such tools differ from each other on aspects of various low-level components that they can monitor."
 

Cons

"It's within z/OS, so it's green screen. It's not user friendly, but I can understand that."
"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."
"In terms of volume, it is not able to handle a huge volume. We also have limitations of queues related to IBM MQ. We often need to handle a very big volume, but currently we do have limitations. If those kinds of limitations could be relaxed, it would help us to work better."
"They might be able to improve the monitoring features."
"I have used the support from IBM MQ. There is some room for improvement."
"If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."
"Everything in the solution could be simplified a little. We have trouble with the configuration and cost which is mostly an internal issue, but nevertheless, the errors do come up when there are configuration changes across a specific version. We have slightly different versions, which may have slightly different configurations which cause issues."
"A better user interface; right now, it's technician dependent, so it's a tech support role."
"Sometimes Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure goes through an upgrade cycle of four years to get to the next version."
"Sometimes Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure goes through an upgrade cycle of four years to get to the next version. Some of the utilities need to be definitely advanced as well so that migration to the latest version is even smoother and easier. That could probably be the only improvements that they can look at. I definitely think that their cloud version capabilities are still nascent. They need to evolve into offering similar capabilities to the cloud infrastructure as well. That is not specifically SaaS but any managed infrastructure that customers would subscribe to in AWS, Azure, and other public clouds. How to employ Software AG Optimize for Infrastructure and also to see if it can be subscribed as a service from Software AG would be the ideal next steps for this solution to evolve into."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of IBM MQ could improve by being less expensive."
"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."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise147
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
webMethods Optimize for Infrastructure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Swisscom
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, TIBCO, Aurea and others in Business Activity Monitoring. Updated: May 2026.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.