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IBM MQ vs TIBCO Enterprise Message Service 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
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
170
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 29.7%, down from 41.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 15.7%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ29.7%
TIBCO Enterprise Message Service15.7%
Other54.6%
Business Activity Monitoring
 

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.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
A value-for-money solution with the requisite features to facilitate efficient communication within an organization
We have been struggling with the stability of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service (EMS), but now I don't know how to differentiate whether the issues are caused by the infrastructure or the product itself. So, I am hesitant to provide a rating because I suspect that it might be due to my setup or environment. I really don't know how to evaluate the product independently. We have faced challenges with EMS, but I am unsure if it is related to infrastructure or the product itself. Even if I reach out for support, I am uncertain if the issue will be resolved since it could be partly related to the product. It's a tough situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to work with."
"It is very robust and very scalable."
"The features of IBM MQ that have proven most effective for ensuring message delivery reliability are the stability of the system, the resilience and the product, which is definitely of top quality in this segment."
"The biggest advantage of IBM MQ is its reliability."
"I haven't seen any severe issues related to it. Most of the time it's running. That is the advantage of IBM MQ."
"Reliable integration between MQ servers is the most valuable feature."
"I like the architecture it provides seamlessly for assured delivery."
"It is quite stable."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is difficult. Creating your own cluster is difficult. Working with cluster repositories is difficult. Issue management with IBM MQ is difficult."
"It would be nice if we could use the cluster facilities because we are doing active/passive configuration use."
"With IBM products, there's less marketing. If they do more demos and more seminars on their products, it will be very useful. On a given day. I get seminar invites for many vendors and products, but for IBM, I may get an invite once or twice a year."
"IBM MQ could improve by adding more protocols or APIs for a standard application, such as MuleSoft."
"IBM could revamp the interface. The API is huge, but some developers find it limiting because of the cost. They tend to wrap the API course into the JMS, which means they're missing out on some good features. They should work a little bit on the API exposure."
"Sometimes, not all messages are consumed in the queues. File transfers need improvement."
"It is expensive. The cost is high. There should be more improvement in the new age of technologies."
"I can't say pricing is good."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The fee for this solution is on the higher end of the scale."
"There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries."
"It's super expensive, so ask them if they can consolidate some other licensing costs. But, IBM is IBM, so I guess we'll pay for it."
"We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price."
"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."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"​The cost of licensing is very high. One should go for the product only if they need to ensure message reliability and they cannot afford to lose messages.​"
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
University
5%
 

Company Size

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

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...
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Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Enterprise Message Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
BNL, SunGard, TUI Group, UTi Worldwide, Yellow Pages Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. TIBCO Enterprise Message Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.