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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 August 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 39.0%, down from 42.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 18.4%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"IBM MQ's flexibility has sped up our active communication."
"Has helped integrate between applications, reduce rework, and costs by reusing working components of existing applications."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution is fast with end data compared to other messaging tools."
"It is easy to create a new queue, and the queue manager connecting to the remote queue works smoothly once the IP and port are included."
"I think the whole product is useful. Their database and all is very good, and the product is fine. The fact that it ensures message delivery is probably the most important thing. I also like that you're able to trace and track everything. If it doesn't arrive at the destination, it will go back to the queue, and no message will be lost."
"IBM MQ deals mainly with the queuing mechanism. It passes the data and it publishes it. These two abilities are the most valuable features."
"I haven't seen any severe issues related to it. Most of the time it's running. That is the advantage of IBM MQ."
"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."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"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."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
 

Cons

"It could always be more stable and secure."
"Should have more integration in the monitoring tools."
"We would like to see the IBM technical support team extend their hand to providing support for other cloud vendors like Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS"
"The solution should offer a freeware version, free vouchers, or certifications for learning purposes and building knowledge base."
"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."
"The product does not allow users to access data from API or external networks since it can only be used in a closed network, making it an area where improvements are required."
"While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities."
"I would like to see it integrate with the newer ways of messaging, such as Kafka. They might say that you have IBM Integration Bus to do that stuff, but it would be great if MQ could, out-of-the-box, listen to public Kafka."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
"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."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"IBM is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price a seven. The product is expensive."
"The price is high."
"The licensing fees are paid quarterly and they are expensive."
"​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
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
46%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
5%
Energy/Utilities Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: July 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.