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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
174
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
3rd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 22.0%, down from 41.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 14.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ22.0%
TIBCO Enterprise Message Service14.7%
Other63.3%
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MK
SWIFT manager at Raiffeisen Bank Aval
Reliable payment processing is achieved with minimal disruption
Currently, we have some disadvantages; it's a bit difficult to use IBM ID to access support from the IBM site. To get nice support from IBM, we need to use IBM ID, and it's a bit complicated to integrate it with IBM support. Support can be better because sometimes we need explanations for some behaviors of the product, and it's not easy to reach the proper person in IBM support. They could add some new features into IBM MQ to make it better. A graphical user interface in addition to MQ Explorer could be useful, but we are satisfied with MQ Explorer as well.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Lead at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
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 is more reliable and secure than other software."
"It's ability to scale, it's ability to do guaranteed delivery and it's ability to do point-to-point of what we subscribe are the most valuable features."
"IBM MQ deals mainly with the queuing mechanism. It passes the data and it publishes it. These two abilities are the most valuable features."
"We have found the MQ messaging topologies valuable."
"The high availability and session recovery are the most valuable features because we need the solution live all day."
"It is stable, reliable, and scalable."
"The solution can scale well."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
 

Cons

"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."
"IBM MQ is not very user-friendly."
"The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM)."
"It's hard to put in a nutshell, but it's sort of developed as more of an on-premise solution. It hasn't moved much away from that."
"Should have more integration in the monitoring tools."
"I would like to see faster monitoring tools for this solution."
"It could get a face lift with a modern marketing campaign."
"The response time for IBM MQ support could be better because when we are using IBM MQ and something goes wrong, support is required as the resource availability of the IBM product is very limited."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It would be a 10 out of 10 if it wasn't so expensive."
"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"IBM MQ is expensive and they charge based on the CPU."
"IBM MQ is an expensive solution compared to other solutions. However, if you pay less you will not receive the same experience or features."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"Licensing for this software is on a yearly basis. The standard fee includes the maintenance and updates that are released periodically."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
"​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.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
40%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise147
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: December 2025.
879,986 professionals have used our research since 2012.