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IBM MQ vs VMware Tanzu Data Solutions comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 28, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM MQ is reliable, cost-effective, enhances stability, and supports integration, though measuring returns may be challenging for public services.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware Tanzu offers increased revenue and stability, appreciated for affordability, functionality, and free access benefits amid ownership changes.
It's a product which integrates the external systems with internal systems or among the systems themselves, making it an essential technology component required to integrate multiple systems.
I have seen a return on investment with VMware Tanzu Data Solutions because of its speed and the robustness of the environment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
IBM MQ support is praised for helpfulness, yet some report delays and suggest improvements in response times and escalation.
Sentiment score
6.6
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions' customer service is fast and attentive, with well-regarded consulting but mixed technical expertise.
We cannot hold on to the project for a long time just to wait for IBM to fix the issues.
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.
With containerized flavors of these products, we are having a tough time dealing with PMRs because the versions are new to IBM.
Customer support for VMware Tanzu Data Solutions has been good with me and with VMware, including Broadcasts.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM MQ's scalability supports various environments with high performance, yet some users find complexity and cost challenging.
Sentiment score
7.3
Opinions on VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vary; it's generally capable but faces scalability and maintenance challenges in some environments.
IBM MQ handles many thousands of messages in a second, indicating good scalability.
In our environment, we do not have horizontal scaling for IBM MQ, but as demand increases, we would just vertically scale it.
We've got 12 VMs running, and it's very easy to scale.
Most of our functions or jobs are queued due to that.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
IBM MQ is highly rated for its stability and reliability, with minimal issues primarily linked to external factors.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is generally stable, though some users experience hardware failures and performance issues under heavy loads.
We have never had any downtime or crashes since it's been running.
The transaction is always guaranteed with IBM MQ, which is the main reason I have been working with it for fifteen years while dealing with financial transactions or messages.
Otherwise, they're completely stable.
I have faced stability issues, mainly due to the storage my organization has, though I am not sure if it's specifically due to the tool.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM MQ users seek enhanced security, modern UI, better cloud integration, and improved scalability with cost-effective and intuitive solutions.
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions need improved stability, scalability, performance, integration, compatibility, documentation, and cloud-native capabilities.
Having a graphical user interface would improve usability.
The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.
They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge.
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions can be improved as it is better and faster for administration and clusters, Dockers, and Kubernetes.
 

Setup Cost

IBM MQ's licensing costs are high, especially for large deployments, but it's valued for performance despite cheaper alternatives.
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions offers cost-effective open-source options with paid support and competitive pricing for advanced features.
It's not cheap.
It's possible to get some training, but the cost of this learning is expensive.
The price of IBM MQ is definitely on the higher side.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is that it is a bit expensive.
 

Valuable Features

IBM MQ ensures reliable, secure messaging with high scalability, supporting diverse applications, ideal for banking and financial sectors.
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions excels in scalability, speed, integration, real-time processing, security, and user-friendly management, enhancing organizational value.
These are financial transactions, so we do not want to lose the message at any cost.
There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked.
It's time-tested, very stable, highly resilient, and has all the features to troubleshoot even if something goes wrong.
The principal aspect is the creation of Kubernetes clusters.
The product is not complex; I do not have to create stored procedures, functions, or views.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (7th), Relational Databases Tools (15th), Data Warehouse (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 25.5%, up from 22.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Data Solutions is 6.0%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM MQ25.5%
VMware Tanzu Data Solutions6.0%
Other68.5%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

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.
Sushma Polavarapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Create essential reporting scripts with simplicity but has some operational challenges
We mainly create functions and scripts required for reporting The product is not complex; I do not have to create stored procedures, functions, or views. It's just simple to use. There is general room for improvement. I have been using it for five years. I have faced stability issues, mainly…
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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
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise146
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

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 VMware RabbitMQ?
RabbitMQ provides access to SDKs for development and the ability to raise and log tickets if we encounter issues. We can integrate RabbitMQ using various languages like Java or Python using the pro...
What needs improvement with VMware RabbitMQ?
Implementing a circuit breaker scenario using RabbitMQ is complicated. This complexity arises because manual intervention is required to manage worker details and handle operations based on worker ...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Greenplum, Pivotal Greenplum, VMware RabbitMQ, VMware Tanzu GemFire, VMware Postgres
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
General Electric, Conversant, China CITIC Bank, Aridhia, Purdue University
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. VMware Tanzu Data Solutions and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.