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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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 42.1%, up from 41.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 19.5%, down from 26.8% 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

"The first things are its simplicity and its robustness. Compared to any other product, it's the most robust I've worked with. And it's extremely easy to manage."
"Data integrity, reliability and security are valuable features that IBM MQ possesses."
"Reliable messaging and throughput are the most valuable."
"The solution is fast with end data compared to other messaging tools."
"There is no dependency on the end party service's run status."
"The solution is easy to understand and even medium developers can easily start using it."
"Overall the solution operates well and has good integration."
"IBM MQ processes many thousands of messages in a second, which is efficient for handling high transaction volumes."
"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 allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"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."
"​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.​"
 

Cons

"I have used the support from IBM MQ. There is some room for improvement."
"The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box."
"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."
"It would be nice to have AI features and an updated graphical user interface."
"There could be a better front-end GUI interface for us, where we can see things more easily."
"The main issue we are having with the solution is due to the connection dropouts which have been going on for a long time now."
"I believe the stability of the product has decreased since we began using it initially."
"We are looking at the latest version, and we hope that resilience, high availability, and monitoring will be improved. It can have some more improvements in the heterogeneous messaging feature. The current solution is on-premises, so good integration with public cloud messaging solutions would be useful."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a very expensive product compared to the open source products in the market."
"IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
"Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
"Pricing could be better, as with all IBM products. But their performance in production, along with security and scalability, will pay returns in the long run."
"I think it's pretty reasonable, but I'm not so too sure of the current pricing strategy from IBM. We use many bundled services, and most often, we go through a service provided by some other third-party implementation. So, I can't really give an honest opinion about that."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price a seven. The product is expensive."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"​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
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
14%
University
4%
Real Estate/Law Firm
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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.