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IBM Event Streams vs IBM MQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 27, 2025

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 Event Streams
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM MQ
Ranking in Message Queue (MQ) Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
169
Ranking in other categories
Business Activity Monitoring (1st), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Message Queue (MQ) Software category, the mindshare of IBM Event Streams is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM MQ is 26.8%, up from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability has been good."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"Setting up MQ is easy. We had a "grow as you go" implementation strategy. We started with a single channel and progressed to multiple queues and channels depending on the systems and integrations with other systems. It was a gradual deployment and expansion as we grew the services interacting with the core system using MQ."
"Offers good performance as well as scalability and stability."
"The features of IBM MQ that have proven most effective for ensuring message delivery reliability are the stability of the system, the resilience and the product, which is definitely of top quality in this segment."
"It is useful for exchanging information between applications."
"IBM is still adding some features and coding some other systems on the security end. However, it has the most security features I've seen in a communication solution. Security is the most important thing for our purposes."
"It also has a backup queue concept and topics, features that I have not seen anywhere else. I like these features very much."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution allows one to easily configure an IBM MQQueueManager."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"I would like to see it integrate with the newer ways of messaging, such as Kafka. They might say that you have IBM Integration Bus to do that stuff, but it would be great if MQ could, out-of-the-box, listen to public Kafka."
"It would be nice if we could use the cluster facilities because we are doing active/passive configuration use."
"If they could come up with monitoring dashboards that would be good. We are using external monitoring tools, apart from our IBM MQ, to monitor IBM MQ. If we could get monitoring tools or dashboards to keep everything simple for the user to understand, that would be good."
"In IBM MQ, the channel connection is an area where my company faces some limitations. At times, we hit limitations on the connection, meaning the connection is fully occupied."
"I wanted to upgrade Windows Server. It's not that easy to move."
"I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop."
"Better error handling, such as a default dead message queue for errors, would be beneficial."
"Everything in the solution could be simplified a little. We have trouble with the configuration and cost which is mostly an internal issue, but nevertheless, the errors do come up when there are configuration changes across a specific version. We have slightly different versions, which may have slightly different configurations which cause issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The platform is averagely priced."
"You have to license per application installation and if you expand vertically or horizontally, you will be paying for more licenses. The licenses are approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a license, it can get expensive quite quickly."
"Our costs haven't increased but they also have not improved."
"The solution costs are high, it is going to cost a fair bit for annual operating costs and support."
"This solution requires a license and we have purchased an enterprise license."
"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."
"IBM MQ is an expensive solution compared to other solutions. However, if you pay less you will not receive the same experience or features."
"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."
"The licensing fees are paid quarterly and they are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Event Streams?
The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Event Streams?
The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Event Streams?
The product's interface needs improvement. Additionally, there could be a management console to create and manage clusters.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Airlines, UBank, Bitly, Eurobits, Active International, Bison, Contextor, Constance Hotels, Resorts & Golf, Creval, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, FaceMe, FacePhi, Fitzsoft, Fuga Technologies, Guardio, Honeywell, Japanese airline, Jenzabar, KONE
Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Event Streams vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
855,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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