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 |
Vendor refund policy
No refunds without approval of IBM
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Request a private offer to receive a custom quote.
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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 application of cost allocation logic 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 infrastructure to identify idle resources, rightsizing opportunities, commitment underutilization, and cost anomalies with actionable recommendations prioritized by savings impact.
Unit Economics and Business Intelligence
Cost analysis capabilities enabling calculation of cost per customer, feature, transaction, and AI inference call with connection of cloud spend to revenue metrics for informed pricing strategy and build versus buy decision-making.
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 changes to team processes or tools.
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?
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.
reviewer2592702
Has provided strong security, reliable integrations, and vendor-backed support for continuous data exchange
Reviewed on Oct 06, 2025
Review provided by PeerSpot
What is our primary use case?
The main use cases with IBM MQ recently would be more of a publish and subscribe mechanism where we have multiple subscribers for the same data which is getting published and that's where we have utilized it.
However, we are moving away from it because it has limited options for scaling up and down.
Additionally, the licensing was one of the factors since it was a licensed copy and it cost us whenever we needed to scale up and down. That's where we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.
What is most valuable?
The best features of IBM MQ were stability and straightforward application functionality. It has vendor support, which was a significant advantage. In case of any production issues, we definitely get vendor support, whereas with Kafka and others, we have to rely on open community and our research.
We have utilized high availability with IBM MQ through clustering in place, which was in the cloud. It was always available for us and worked very effectively. The only issue we encountered was related to scaling up and down, which required installing additional servers from a hardware perspective.
Regarding IBM MQ 's transactional integrity and maintaining data consistency, it performs effectively and I never faced any issues with respect to transactions or data loss.
The management tools come along with Universal Messaging, so explicit implementation of other tools isn't necessary.
IBM MQ comes with all the necessary encryption options and security features that we need.
What needs improvement?
The main differences between these two products, both pros and cons, in my opinion, mainly concern the scale up and scale down capabilities, which are more impacting us.
Apart from that, I don't see any issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have dealt with this product, IBM MQ Universal Messaging, for close to four years now. Previously it was Software AG before being taken over by IBM.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has vendor support, which was a significant advantage. In case of any production issues, we definitely get vendor support, whereas with Kafka and others, we have to rely on open community and our research.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM MQ has limitations regarding scaling options. The licensing costs associated with scaling up and down were significant, which is why we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.
The main differences between these two products primarily concern the scale up and scale down capabilities, which are more impacting us. Apart from that, I don't see any issues.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate their support as nine out of ten so far.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are moving away from it because it has limited options for scaling up and down. The licensing was one of the factors since it was a licensed copy and it cost us whenever we needed to scale up and down. That's where we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.
What other advice do I have?
I work as an integration architect who helps integrate applications, handling data passing to SAP CRM , SaaS-based applications, databases, or Databricks applications. In integration, I am familiar with IBM MQ and Kafka. Regarding IBM MQ, it is IBM Universal Messaging tool, which is similar to what MQ is. I have rated this solution 9 out of 10.
David Pizinger
Has faced unexpected VM restarts but continues to deliver messages reliably
Reviewed on Sep 30, 2025
Review from a verified AWS customer
What is our primary use case?
I work with both IBM MQ and WebSphere Application Server . I don't want to say I'm an expert at either one of them, but I manage an infrastructure team that has both of these technologies in the infrastructure.
IBM MQ is basically used in applications that are part of the ACE product. It's also used a lot for my clients' workload that comes from B2B, and there are some MQ B2B connections that come in, so we use it for that. The two main uses are for ACE and for B2B from external clients.
What is most valuable?
The best thing about IBM MQ solution is that it's guaranteed delivery and it's fast. Those are the two big advantages.
The transactional integrity of IBM MQ in maintaining data consistency is good. We haven't had any issues in four to five years.
What needs improvement?
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.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The only issue I've had with IBM MQ in the last couple of years is that whenever there is a delta in the CPU consumption of a VM that MQ is housed on, occasionally we get those VMs that power off and power on. I'm not even sure if that's a problem with Linux or a problem with IBM MQ, but that's the only issue we've had with them. Otherwise, they're completely stable.
I would rate the stability of IBM MQ probably a nine or above. It's pretty good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM MQ scales just fine. We've got 12 VMs running, and it's very easy to scale.
How are customer service and support?
IBM has always been good with technical support, so I would rate them a seven or an eight.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We haven't used any other message queue software before choosing IBM MQ, as it's been our messaging software.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From what I understand, the pricing or licensing of IBM MQ is a one-time charge and then a yearly license fee. We pay about 6-7K per CPU and probably about 2 to 3K per year for each CPU licensed. It's not cheap.
What other advice do I have?
Everything that we have comes in as TLS, so IBM MQ's encryption doesn't really play in because everything we have that comes in from the outside world is TLS. On a scale of one to ten, I rate IBM MQ an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
reviewer2721285
Experience with reliability and resilience while knowledge accessibility needs improvement
Reviewed on Jun 11, 2025
Review from a verified AWS customer
What is our primary use case?
With IBM MQ , the main use case is for applications in online banking. We use it within the banking industry. IBM MQ is a choice to create a relation between the Mainframe and distributed servers, allowing applications running on Linux or Windows to interface with Mainframe applications and enable more development of easier and open applications in a distributed environment. This means we can develop more applications that are easier to use.
What is most valuable?
I work with CICs, Workload Manager, and DB2 mainly. I have experience with IBM MQ . We mainly use clusters at the Windows level or Linux level, and in the Mainframe, we have multiple paths and different lines of connectivity transmission to assess the impact of IBM MQ 's high-availability configurations on our system's resilience.
We use advanced security features such as SSH for encryption and authentication mechanisms. The security features help protect our messaging data by encrypting the transmission and ensuring authentication for connection.
What needs improvement?
The customer service or technical support from IBM is not as good as we expected; it could be better. They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge.
For how long have I used the solution?
We use some IBM solutions hosted on AWS as a cloud provider.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
The initial setup of IBM MQ is reasonable, just as we were expecting, and we were on time for that project.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The maintenance for IBM MQ is good to be once a year; that's the best.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We mainly use clusters at the Windows level or Linux level, and in the Mainframe, we have multiple paths and different lines of connectivity transmission to assess the impact of IBM MQ's high-availability configurations on our system's resilience.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service or technical support from IBM is not as good as we expected; it could be better. I rate them a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. They don't meet our standards due to the timing to get a person with knowledge.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I don't really know the main differences between IBM MQ and other messaging queue solutions because it has been my natural choice, coming from Mainframe z/OS.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of IBM MQ is reasonable, just as we were expecting, and we were on time for that project.
What about the implementation team?
In the setup, there are mainly two persons involved, but others from different areas are also involved, making it more than just those two.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I currently work with IBM, but we are also using other vendors such as BMC and Logon for specific backup solutions from Mainframe.
What other advice do I have?
My main experience is with IBM Mainframe. I do not have experience with their IBM QRadar . AWS is not our main cloud provider for IBM solutions. I am not very experienced with cloud, but we do use object storage, which is cloud or on-prem for example.
I don't remember specific examples at this moment, but if you contact me in two days, I will probably be able to refresh my memory as I'm currently focused on the capacity and performance issues of the system. I don't have thoughts on IBM MQ's pricing since I work in the support area and I'm not related to the purchasing process.
My company mainly provides services to the banking area but also sells many products, including IBM and open system solutions, such as storage. My company's name is Telcos, spelled T-A-L-C-O-S.
I am very interested in providing a review for the IBM Workload Automation based on my recent experience with it. I am still working with Workload Automation and probably have a project related to this support, but I have switched to focusing more on performance issues at the moment. I used to be more focused on Workload Automation, but now I have shifted my project to banking application performance and capacity.
I still work with IBM solutions in the other area, maintaining contact with AWS that relates to Workload Automation. I deal with banking services in general performance, mainly related to recovery, backup solutions, and CPU utilization. I have experience with IBM ProtecTIER, specifically the ProtecTIER, and not Tivoli. I do not remember experiencing Spectrum. I do not have experience with Spectrum Protect.
I have experience with backup and recovery, particularly on the Mainframe side, but not with HSM. HSM is more related to the Mainframe, and while I don't have recent experience, my focus has shifted to performance areas in z/OS, especially solutions relating to backups and disaster recovery.
We move data from Mainframe to the cloud. BMC is one of the companies I refer to, along with Logon. Logon is spelled L-O-G-O-N. Logon is based in Israel.
Overall, I would rate IBM MQ an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)