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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
173
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)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.9%, down from 40.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 15.5%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ25.9%
TIBCO Enterprise Message Service15.5%
Other58.6%
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

David Pizinger - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"IBM MQ is robust compared to other products in the market. It also gives you support from the IBM team."
"This solution has improved and influenced the communication between different applications, then standardized that communication."
"The most valuable feature of IBM MQ is it has all the features necessary for contemporary messaging, not only for the financial industry but for any application."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"IBM MQ processes many thousands of messages in a second, which is efficient for handling high transaction volumes."
"The scalability of IBM MQ is good."
"​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."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"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.​"
 

Cons

"The pricing needs improvement."
"The solution should offer a freeware version, free vouchers, or certifications for learning purposes and building knowledge base."
"The areas of IBM MQ that have room for improvement are its compatibility with the public clouds, specifically its compatibility with Azure or AWS, as there is definitely a lot of scope for improvement there."
"The tool is expensive."
"IBM MQ has limitations regarding scaling options. The licensing costs associated with scaling up and down were significant, which is why we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka."
"I would just like a more user-friendly experience to do common administration tasks. I know that you can use MQ Explorer, but having something that's already built in would definitely be useful."
"The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM)."
"You should be able to increase the message size. It should be dynamic. Each queue has a limitation of 5,000."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
"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."
"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

"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"It is a licensed product. As compared to an open-source solution, such as RabbitMQ, it is obviously costly. If you're using IBM Message Broker, which is a licensed product, IBM MQ is included in the same license. You don't have to pay separately for IBM MQ. The license cost of IBM MQ is lesser than IBM Message Broker."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"The problem with this product is that it's a little bit expensive."
"The license for IBM MQ is commercial and not cheap. You get a multi-platform solution, which is important because it lets you connect systems on mainframes, personal solutions, Unix, Linux, etc."
"IBM MQ is an expensive solution compared to other solutions. However, if you pay less you will not receive the same experience or features."
"IBM's licensing model seems more reasonable than some competitors. They charge based on usage, which is good."
"There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries."
"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
35%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
43%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise146
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...
Ask a question
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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: November 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.