Sold by: IBM Software
Deployed on AWS
Provides assured, once-only delivery of messages between applications across the widest range of languages, platforms and clouds. Connects message and event-driven applications securely, reliably at the highest levels of performance and scale to enable business agility and resilience.
4.3
Overview
IBM MQ is trusted by thousands of enterprises around the world to deliver billions of messages, representing trillions of dollars of business value, exactly once, every day. An IBM MQ network is typically composed of applications written in many languages, running on many platforms across a wide variety of data centres and multiple clouds.
Benefits - IBM MQ:
Helps business adapt to change - applications are de-coupled so that they can be changed independently of each other.
Helps Developers and ITOps to be more productive - further simplifying the development of integrations and management of the queue network in each product release.
Enables business agility by supporting the automation of application and integration operations with support for containers (Kubernetes and OpenShift) and advanced telemetry (OpenTelemetry).
Accelerates hybrid cloud for applications and infrastructure modernization projects by offering BYOL support for AWS and other hyperscalers as well as SaaS and the widest variety of on-prem deployment models from appliances, windows and UNIX servers and Z/OS.
Provides support for multiple messaging and integration architectures: point to point messaging with Store & Forward and Request & Response patterns, as well as Publish and Subscribe with dynamic topics and subscriptions. IBM MQ plays an important role as a transport and event source in many Kafka-based Event Driven Architectures.
Delivers business resilience. Across platforms IBM provides intelligence workload balancing, high availability and disaster recovery services from an individual node, right up to availability zone and regional levels.
Secures messages at rest and during transportation across the network, including end-to-end encryption and data confidentiality and integrity checking.
Highlights
- Note that this page is for a software product and not a SaaS offering, and purchasing this entitlement on AWS is purchasing entitlement to the IBM MQ or MQ Advanced software only. Details for how to deploy IBM MQ software on AWS are provided. IBM MQ is available in 2 editions to suit the needs of your business.
- IBM MQ is the standard offering providing the essential capabilities you need to securely and reliably connect applications, enable insights into events, and empower teams to innovate and deliver outstanding customer experiences.
- IBM MQ Advanced provides everything that is available in the standard offering plus additional capabilities providing state of the art data resiliency, broader connectivity options, and advanced security for end to end encryption and audit compliance. To upgrade from IBM MQ to IBM MQ Advanced, please contact us at AskMessaging@uk.ibm.com
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Pricing
Pricing is based on the duration and terms of your contract with the vendor. This entitles you to a specified quantity of use for the contract duration. If you choose not to renew or replace your contract before it ends, access to these entitlements will expire.
Additional AWS infrastructure costs may apply. Use the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate your infrastructure costs.
Dimension | Description | Cost/12 months |
|---|---|---|
IBM MQ VPCs | Entitlement to IBM MQ VPCs | $3,744.00 |
IBM MQ Advanced VPCs | Entitlement to IBM MQ Advanced VPCs | $6,996.00 |
Dimensions summary
This listing offers two contract-based entitlements, each billed by Virtual Processor Cores (VPCs). You pick the edition that matches your messaging needs. IBM MQ VPCs entitle you to the standard messaging capabilities. IBM MQ Advanced VPCs entitle you to added resilience features, such as native high availability, cross-region replication, and managed file transfer. Both options scale by the number of VPC units you purchase, so you buy entitlement in proportion to the processor cores your workload uses. The two dimensions are independent choices, not sequential tiers; you select the edition that fits your requirements.
Top-of-mind questions for buyers
A VPC is a Virtual Processor Core. You count the processor cores available to the machines running the software. You buy entitlement to match that core count. Each core your workload uses requires one VPC unit of entitlement, whether the edition is IBM MQ or IBM MQ Advanced.
IBM MQ Advanced VPCs add resilience and data-movement features. These include native high availability for 24x7 service, cross-region replication for disaster recovery, and managed file transfer for large data payloads. Standard IBM MQ VPCs entitle you to the core messaging capabilities without these added features.
Yes. The two dimensions bill independently. You purchase VPC units for each edition separately, based on the cores each workload uses. They are not sequential tiers, so buying one does not require or include the other. You pick the edition that fits each deployment.
www.ibm.com
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Delivery details
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS delivers cloud-based software applications directly to customers over the internet. You can access these applications through a subscription model. You will pay recurring monthly usage fees through your AWS bill, while AWS handles deployment and infrastructure management, ensuring scalability, reliability, and seamless integration with other AWS services.
Resources
Vendor resources
Support
Vendor support
IBM MQ is trusted by thousands of customers to provide assured once-only delivery of messages between applications in many of the most demanding business environments across Financial Services, Transport and Distribution, Healthcare, Retail and other sectors.
AWS infrastructure support
AWS Support is a one-on-one, fast-response support channel that is staffed 24x7x365 with experienced and technical support engineers. The service helps customers of all sizes and technical abilities to successfully utilize the products and features provided by Amazon Web Services.
Updated weekly
By IBM Software
By Anaplan, Inc
Top
10
In Device Connectivity
Top
25
In Financial Services, ML Solutions
Top
10
In Analytic Platforms
Sentiment is AI generated from actual customer reviews on AWS and G2
Functionality
Ease of use
Customer service
Cost effectiveness
Positive reviews
Mixed reviews
Negative reviews
AI generated from product descriptions
Message Delivery Guarantee
Assured, once-only delivery of messages between applications with Store & Forward and Request & Response patterns
Multi-Platform Support
Support for multiple languages, platforms, and deployment models including containers (Kubernetes and OpenShift), on-premises servers (Windows, UNIX, Z/OS), and multiple cloud environments
Messaging Architecture Options
Support for point-to-point messaging, Publish and Subscribe with dynamic topics and subscriptions, and integration with Kafka-based Event Driven Architectures
High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Intelligence workload balancing, high availability, and disaster recovery services across individual nodes, availability zones, and regional levels
End-to-End Security
Message encryption at rest and in transit, end-to-end encryption, data confidentiality and integrity checking, and advanced audit compliance capabilities
AI-Driven Forecasting Capability
Anaplan Forecaster provides next-generation AI-driven forecasting natively built into the platform, enabling creation of accurate, transparent, and scalable forecasts that integrate into enterprise planning.
Real-Time Cloud-Based Planning Environment
Unified real-time, cloud-based environment that enables dynamic, collaborative, and intelligent planning across finance, sales, supply chain, marketing, human resources, and operations.
Financial and Operational Modeling
Flexible modeling capabilities that automate, structure, and connect financial and operational solutions including FP&A, opex, sales planning, sales incentives, pipeline and revenue forecasting.
Supply Chain Planning and Collaboration
Real-time collaboration capabilities across departments, functions, suppliers, and customers through supply, demand, and sales & operations planning solutions with supply chain intelligence.
Cross-Organizational Data Integration
Connected planning platform that links people, data, and plans across organizational silos to surface key insights and optimize decision-making from strategic to operational levels.
Multi-Cloud Cost Aggregation
Unified cost visibility across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Kubernetes, Snowflake, Databricks, Datadog, OpenAI, Anthropic, and additional platforms through a single real-time consolidated view without requiring code changes or agent deployments.
Retroactive Cost Allocation
Virtual Tags engine enabling retroactive cost allocation across any dimension including team, environment, customer, product feature, transaction, or AI model without modifying original cloud tags, with intelligent shared cost splitting based on custom metrics.
Automated Waste Detection and Optimization
CostGuard system that continuously scans for idle resources, rightsizing opportunities, commitment underutilization, and cost anomalies with actionable recommendations prioritized by savings impact.
Unit Economics and Business Intelligence
Cost per customer, feature, transaction, and AI inference call analysis integrated into the platform to connect cloud spend to revenue and inform pricing and build versus buy decisions.
Cost Governance and Accountability Framework
Custom dashboards, budgets, and financial plans that embed cost ownership and accountability into existing engineering and finance workflows without requiring workflow changes.
Standard contract
No
No
Customer reviews
Srinivas Krishnamsetty
Asynchronous messaging has streamlined workflow triggers and supports reliable session rollbacks
Reviewed on Dec 03, 2025
Review from a verified AWS customer
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for IBM MQ is its integration with APIs, and what we do is have a workflow system. In order to trigger the workflow, which is more of an asynchronous processing, we send a message to the workflow through IBM MQ, where the workflow listens to the IBM MQ message and then starts creating the case in the workflow system.
What is most valuable?
The best features IBM MQ offers are the topic and subscription, as well as the IBM MQ session and message rollbacks, especially for JMS integration. IBM MQ serves as the underlying foundation for our JMS messages.
IBM MQ has positively impacted my organization by enabling asynchronous processing, which means we do not need to wait for any responses from our downstream systems.
What needs improvement?
IBM MQ can be improved by having a feature where a message can be rolled back, especially if I want to go back to a particular message.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM MQ for around ten years, including five years and another five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
IBM MQ is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM MQ's scalability is very good; we have clusters in place, so we are satisfied with its performance.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing IBM MQ, I did not evaluate other options.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate IBM MQ a nine out of ten; it is an excellent product, but it requires more additional features similar to Kafka. I would advise others looking into using IBM MQ to consider it as the best product for asynchronous data communication between systems.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Francisco R.
The tried and true workhorse of medium to high volume message queueing & processing
Reviewed on Dec 01, 2025
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
What I like the most, is the system's reliability , performance and throughput strength for message processing and distribution between systems or components. Even when only using a single unit of work , it's performance is very consistent for medium to high volume of messages being processed and distributed. The product itself is easy to install and maintain across many platforms (AIX , RHEL & Microsoft Windows are the one's I've personally worked with and can vouch for). And there are plenty of libraries to leverage MQ for different technology stacks. IBM also has solid documentation on the product and since this product itself is very mature and widely used, there's plenty of knowledge base to find throughout the internet.
If your system needs an engine to manage and process medium to high volumes of messages, IBM MQ is the product you can rely on to handle and scale as your products and services grow.
If your system needs an engine to manage and process medium to high volumes of messages, IBM MQ is the product you can rely on to handle and scale as your products and services grow.
What do you dislike about the product?
One of the things where IBM MQ may fall short a bit , is implementing secure connections between MQ and clients or other MQ's , due to the limitations of TLS handshaking for a IBM MQ channel , having to be tied to a specific algorithm ( usually the one used for the signature algorithm of the certificate being used ) instead of a natural SSL handshake negotiation. This can be tricky if you're integrating 3rd parties with your systems using IBM MQ as it requires a coordination effort to establish the cipherSpec negotiations. It can be tricky to perform hardening of IBM MQ considering how quickly can the winds shift on the security spectrum of technology.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Let's me process large volume of payment transactions. Integrate with Mainframe Cobol programs as a mean of communication of data. It also allows my sytems to hold and later resume, in case of any system failure, transactions that need to be processed, or already processed and need to be logged in a system. Allowing business continuity in case of system failures.
Costica Florea
Has consistently delivered robust performance and seamless integration over the years
Reviewed on Oct 27, 2025
Review provided by PeerSpot
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for IBM WebSphere Application Server are mostly web-oriented, involving Servlets, core Servlets, and Beans, which includes my personal projects.
The use cases for IBM MQ in my context involve working in tandem with WebSphere, where data is taken based on events. I notice that people are increasingly moving towards Kafka, especially here, as it performs similar functions to IBM MQ.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best features of the WebSphere Application Server make it the ultimate product. There is nothing higher than WebSphere. The market has Tomcat, JBoss, and other low-level application servers, but then there is WebSphere. I prefer WebSphere particularly on AIX because it's a very powerful engine. AIX is a powerful engine, and I don't think there is any UNIX system which is better than AIX. I'm 100% confident about that. I have been working with AIX since my time as an IBMer in Europe and also here in the Royal Bank, where we have a huge forest of AIX machines, running WebSphere on many of them. I also have experience with WebSphere in Windows, which is also very good; from an administrative and development point of view, it's transparent. There is not much worry about having WebSphere on AIX or Windows.
I would assess the integration of WebSphere with third-party tools and services in terms of modernizing the IT infrastructure as very good. I was involved in an application where I integrated WebSphere with Node.js and also with Blue Prism. I executed many REST applications because at my core I am a developer. Although my title is architect, I am still a geek and a developer, and I started as a developer, so I carry that passion with me.
At the Royal Bank, I have benefited from WebSphere's high availability and clustering because the overwhelming majority of our environments are clustered with IBM HTTP Server in front. We have clusters not just with two WebSphere engines; some of them even have four or six WebSphere engines, all managed under IBM HTTP Server. Everything is federated.
From my perspective on the best features of IBM MQ, if given the choice between Kafka and IBM MQ, I would choose IBM MQ as it is by far the best. However, people opt for Kafka because it is open source and comes at no cost. This conveys my mantra that the best solution doesn't always align with being the right one, highlighting the significant difference between the best and the right.
What needs improvement?
Regarding the improvement of the WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere is at version 9.0.5.23, and last month they released another fix because they periodically put out fixes. Previously, there were very frequent version increases, but now they maintain the focus on 9.0.5 and its different releases. Oracle announced that 2030 will be the last year when Java 1.8.x will be supported, which raises questions about the future of WebSphere since it is based on Java J2EE 7 and Java SDK 1.8. I wonder what the future holds for WebSphere after 2030 since I have never seen any communication from IBM detailing this trajectory.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have around eight years of experience with IBM products in general, as I was working with IBM Eastern Europe in Vienna before coming to Canada, and I worked with WebSphere, OS, even OS operating system, AS/400. At that time, it wasn't I5, I6; the name was AS/400. After coming to Canada in January 1998, I worked with IBM Canada in Steeles, Toronto, until 2002.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the support from IBM for their WebSphere Application Server as very good, although I have only called IBM for support two or three times in my life. Most of the time, I figure things out myself, so I would rate it a 10, with 10 being the best.
For IBM MQ support, I have only contacted support once in my life, and the experience was very good, so I can't complain. I would rate it a 10.
How was the initial setup?
In my opinion, the initial setup of the WebSphere Application Server is not complex at all. I have been working with WebSphere since my time in Romania as part of IBM in Vienna, and now it is straightforward for me. While it might seem challenging at the beginning, once you get your hands on it, it becomes very straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the WebSphere Application Server at the Royal Bank is influenced by our unique agreements with IBM, as it's a large establishment with numerous IBM products, including mainframes. I am not aware of the specific agreements, but it is similar to purchasing in bulk, where the pricing structure is not the same as buying a single item at a grocery store.
What other advice do I have?
I still use IBM WebSphere Application Server, specifically the latest version which is 9.0.5, and I work with IBM MQ and Rational as well.
I have not had any experience with AppScan or other testing tools; I am not utilizing any tools besides Rational.
I have used management tools with IBM MQ, and I find them beneficial for optimizing message flows. I utilize these tools, but often rely on my instinct, as IBM MQ is built on Java, which I have extensive experience with.
Regarding high availability with IBM MQ, we also have IBM MQ in clusters. Having IBM MQ in a cluster is useful since the cluster setup means we have some form of high availability.
I rate this solution 10 out of 10.
Francis C.
Rock-Solid Reliability with a Learning Curve
Reviewed on Oct 27, 2025
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
With over 10 years of experience working with MQ, I can confidently say that its greatest strength is its reliability and the guarantee of exactly-once message delivery.
What do you dislike about the product?
This product is quite complex and does require some time to learn. There is definitely a learning curve involved.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The product guarantees message delivery even during system outages, which helps maintain reliability. this ensures not a lot of error handling and providing support is required.
Niki H.
MQ: Built for Reliability, Not Hype
Reviewed on Oct 17, 2025
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
MQ is super lightweight, extremely fast, and highly reliable — a robust backbone for asynchronous communication that continuously evolves with modern architectures.
What do you dislike about the product?
MQ is frequently labeled as legacy because it has been around for decades and does its job quietly in the background. Unlike newer, trend-driven technologies, it doesn’t rely on hype or flashy rebranding. Its stability, backward compatibility, and focus on reliability are sometimes mistaken for stagnation. In reality, MQ has continuously evolved, but because it solves hard problems once and well, it draws less attention than constantly changing frameworks—even though many modern systems still rely on it at their core.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
How do you let systems communicate reliably without depending on each other being up, fast, or tightly coupled:
- Decoupling systems
- Messages are persistence
- Controlled load
-Asynchronous
-Guaranteed delivery
- Decoupling systems
- Messages are persistence
- Controlled load
-Asynchronous
-Guaranteed delivery