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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
165
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 April 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 42.8%, up from 42.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 20.0%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

SelvaKumar4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to batch metadata transfers between systems that support MQ as the communication method
We find it scalable for internal applications, but not so much for external integrations. It should support a wider range of protocols, not just a few specific ones. Many other products have broader protocol support, and IBM MQ is lagging in that area. IBM MQ needs to improve the UI for quicker logging. Users should also have a lot more control over logging, with a dashboard-like interface. That's something they should definitely work on.
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 system integration is good."
"The high availability and session recovery are the most valuable features because we need the solution live all day."
"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."
"It runs everywhere, from the mainframe in the US to the PCs in the Gobi desert attached to an analog modem."
"The reliability of the queuing is the most valuable feature."
"The methodology and the way in which the platform has been produced as a standard is most valuable. There are so many different versions of it now, but the actual basic functionality and the simplicity of it have made it far easier to be implemented in so many different instances. When I worked with the OS/2 or PS/2 machine environment, the messaging mechanisms were based upon IBM MQ. It is so versatile, which is the main reason that I'm a fan of it."
"I like the MQ's simplicity and rock-solid stability. I've never experienced a failure in two decades caused by the product itself. It has only failed due to human error."
"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.​"
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"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.​"
"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."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
 

Cons

"I believe the stability of the product has decreased since we began using it initially."
"The initial setup is difficult. Creating your own cluster is difficult. Working with cluster repositories is difficult. Issue management with IBM MQ is difficult."
"Presenting and maybe having some different options for different user experiences based on the administrative duties that you have to do as an app manager or configure the server or security would be an improvement."
"I couldn't find a lot of information on the system API side."
"I would like the ability to connect with some of the more recent offerings, such as API Connect; being able to publish our MQ endpoints, the queues, the messaging infrastructure as IT assets."
"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"
"Scalability is lacking compared to the cloud native products coming into the market."
"It should support a wider range of protocols, not just a few specific ones. Many other products have broader protocol support, and IBM MQ is lagging in that area."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing."
"The price of IBM MQ could improve by being less expensive."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, and we are on an annual subscription."
"99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
"I think the pricing is reasonable, especially with IIB as a part of it."
"The pricing seems good according to the functionality that the solution provides."
"IBM products, in general, have high licensing costs and support costs are too high."
"​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
37%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
43%
Computer Software Company
15%
Transportation Company
4%
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...
What do you like most about TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
Maybe the capability to undergo training for specific functionalities, such as implementing Kaspersky for handling high volume transactions in TIBCO Enterprises Message Service. Occasionally, we su...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
I use TIBCO Enterprise Message Service for some of my internal communications. For instance, if there is an API called A that needs to communicate with an API referred to as B, we prefer to use mes...
 

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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.