Amazon SNS vs IBM MQ comparison

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) Logo
1,382 views|592 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
IBM Logo
2,823 views|1,851 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon SNS and IBM MQ based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Stability has been good for us. It is quite high.""Push notifications are the most valuable. I have mostly used push notifications for my system. Amazon SNS supports all devices for push notification services. It supports iOS, Android, and Windows notifications. It provides reliable push notification services. We have queues, and we can track which notifications have failed or had some issues. We can then figure out the issue. We can also debug the issue because of which our push notification didn't reach the end users.""It's a simple communication service that allows us to communicate with customers.""The mobile push notifications are the most valuable. Previously, we used to use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for this functionality. It is a Google service for sending push notifications. Android did not have a good service for sending push notifications, but now, Amazon SNS integrates with FCM. Under the road, it is actually using FCM, but we can see all the metrics on our AW service itself, which makes it a lot easier instead of using a third-party service for this particular functionality.""Messages easily flow from publisher or application to subscriber.""The initial setup of Amazon SNS was easy.""The most valuable feature of Amazon SNS is speed. It's really fast.""We have found the key feature of this solution to be the simplicity of sending out notifications."

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"Reliability is the most valuable feature. MQ is used to support critical business applications.""Reliable integration between MQ servers is the most valuable feature.""Combined with IBM MQ, this product is our primary data store.""The most valuable feature is that it's a very strong integration platform but it is quite a monolithic solution. It's got everything.""Encryption and the fact that we have not had any data loss issues so far have been very valuable features. IBM MQ is well encrypted so that we are well within our compliance and regulatory requirements, so that is a plus point as well.""RabbitMQ and Kafka require more steps for setup than IBM MQ. Installation of the IBM product is very simple.""Clustering is one of its most valuable features.""The most valuable feature of IBM MQ is transaction processing."

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Cons
"There could be more integration with other solutions.""The tool needs to have direct integration with AvPro.""In terms of improvement, I would like to have better customer support for SNS. We can then manage it very easily.""A major issue with AWS as a whole is that it has a lot of services that do the same thing, and people get confused about which one to use in which scenario. Previously, we used to use SNS for connecting microservices. SNS has around six types of subscribers. We can subscribe to Lambda, HTTP, HTTPS, SMS, email, and push notifications. We used to use HTTP endpoints and Lambda for connecting to microservice systems. Now we have something called EventBridge, which actually does that for you. For connecting to services, we should just use EventBridge rather than SQS, SNS. I hear a lot of complaints from people wherein they do not understand when to use EventBridge and when to use SQS, SNS. They can remove these features so that it doesn't confuse users about when to use SQS, SNS, or EventBridge.""We would like to have the option when someone leaves the organization or moves to another team, to remove notifications. Currently this needs to be done manually by the company admin.""I recently worked with Firebase, and it provides an option to create a marketing campaign with a title and a specific image to inform our audience about something. We just design the campaign and then use the push notifications. It would be good if Amazon also adds a similar feature.""Messages should flow through a gateway without the need for a mediator.""In future releases, I want to see if the platforms that SMS can reach. It would be a good way to improve it. More platforms to be able to use it."

More Amazon SNS Cons →

"The clustering capabilities have provided some difficulties when it comes to resiliency. This has been a challenge for managing the environment.""What could be improved is the high-availability. The way MQ works is that it separates the high-availability from the workload balance. The scalability should be easier. If something happens so that the messages are not available on each node, scalability is only possible for the workload balance.""I'm not sure that current version has event-driven mechanism requests that people go for. I would like the latest version to come with both type of event mechanisms: an email server and a POP server. If that is not there, then that would be a great addition.""They need to add the ability to send full messages (header + payload) from the MQ Explorer program, not just the payload.""In the next release, I would like for there to be easier monitoring. The UI should be easier for non-technical users to set up appliances and servers.""IBM MQ could improve capacity, monitoring, and automatization.""I wanted to upgrade Windows Server. It's not that easy to move.""IBM MQ could streamline its complexity to be more like Kafka without the channel complexities of clusters, making it more straightforward."

More IBM MQ Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing of push notifications and everything is quite fair. If you are using FCM under the hood, it is completely free. When you are using push notification on SMS, it is just a nominal price that you need to pay. SMS services are a lot more costly. It is because we don't have proper providers in India. That's why it gets a lot more costly in terms of SMS. This is the reason why we don't use SMS services from SNS itself. We use other third-party services like SMS Horizon. We use a third-party service for email services. It is almost free. It is just around $1 a month. Configuring Lambda is also quite cheap. You only pay for the Lambda usage. You don't pay for SNS itself."
  • "It is the cheapest solution in the market. It is on a monthly basis. After a month, you are build based on your usage. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
  • "Their pricing is competitive. I would rate the cost four out of five."
  • "The solution has no up-front costs because you pay based on the number of messages you publish."
  • "Amazon SNS is cheap and I would rate it a three out of ten. The pricing is usage-based."
  • "The pricing is very cheap."
  • "One can use the tool for free."
  • More Amazon SNS Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's super expensive, so ask them if they can consolidate some other licensing costs. But, IBM is IBM, so I guess we'll pay for it."
  • "IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
  • "Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain."
  • "I think the pricing is reasonable, especially with IIB as a part of it."
  • "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."
  • "99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years. IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best."
  • "IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly."
  • "In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
  • More IBM MQ Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of Amazon SNS is speed. It's really fast.
    Top Answer:In future releases, I want to see if the platforms that SMS can reach. It would be a good way to improve it. More platforms to be able to use it.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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 users… more »
    Top Answer: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 protocols… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    1,382
    Comparisons
    592
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    384
    Rating
    8.8
    Views
    2,823
    Comparisons
    1,851
    Reviews
    21
    Average Words per Review
    452
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    WebSphere MQ
    Learn More
    Overview

    Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a highly available, durable, secure, fully managed pub/sub messaging service that enables you to decouple microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. Amazon SNS provides topics for high-throughput, push-based, many-to-many messaging. Using Amazon SNS topics, your publisher systems can fan out messages to a large number of subscriber endpoints for parallel processing, including Amazon SQS queues, AWS Lambda functions, and HTTP/S webhooks. Additionally, SNS can be used to fan out notifications to end users using mobile push, SMS, and email.

    You can get started with Amazon SNS in minutes by using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or AWS Software Development Kit (SDK).

      IBM MQ is a middleware product used to send or exchange messages across multiple platforms, including applications, systems, files, and services via MQs (messaging queues). This solution helps simplify the creation of business applications, and also makes them easier to maintain. IBM MQ is security-rich, has high performance, and provides a universal messaging backbone with robust connectivity. In addition, it also integrates easily with existing IT assets by using an SOA (service oriented architecture).

      IBM MQ can be deployed:

      • On-premises
      • In the cloud
      • Hybrid cloud

      IBM MQ supports the following APIs:

      • MQI (Message Queue Interface)
      • REST
      • .NET
      • MQTT
      • JMS
      • IBM MQ Light


      IBM MQ Features

      Some of the most powerful IBM MQ features include:

      • High availability
      • Stability and scalability
      • Flexible deployment options
      • Uniform clusters
      • Automated and intelligent workload balancing
      • Broad language, API, and messaging protocol support
      • Administrative features that simplify messaging management
      • Open standards development tools
      • Simple management tools

      IBM MQ Benefits

      Some of the benefits of using IBM MQ include:

      • Multi-style messaging: IBM MQ supports simple multi-style messaging, making it easy to connect diverse systems with support for message queuing, transactions, and more.

      • Reduced risk: With IBM MQ you will never lose a message, and messages are never delivered more than once.

      • Cloud-native: Because IBM MQ has a minimal infrastructure, it is suitable to be cloud-native, and therefore has the capability to always remain on.

      • Available anywhere: Using IBM MQ, you have access to secure messaging anywhere, at any time.

      • Secure: IBM MQ makes sure to keep your data safe by using TLS secured communications, providing access identity management, message-level security, and more measures to protect your information.

      • Easy for application programmers: To use IBM MQ, application programmers do not need to have any knowledge of communications programming.

      • Technical support: IBM MQ has a large user community and also provides support 24/7 as needed.

      Reviews from Real Users

      Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by IBM MQ users who are currently using the solution.

      PeerSpot user Sunil S., a manager at a financial services firm, explains that they never lose messages are never lost in transit, mentioning that he can store messages and forward them as required: "Whenever payments are happening, such as incoming payments to the bank, we need to notify the customer. With MQ we can actually do that asynchronously. We don't want to notify the customer for each and every payment but, rather, more like once a day. That kind of thing can be enabled with the help of MQ."

      Another PeerSpot reviewer, Luis L. who is a solutions director at Thesys Technologies, says that IBM MQ is a valuable solution and is "A stable and reliable software that offers good integration between different systems."

      The head of operations at a financial services firm notes that "I have found the solution to be very robust. It has a strong reputation, is easy to use, simple to configure in our enterprise software, and supports all the protocols that we use."

      In addition, a Software Engineer at a financial services firm praises the security benefits of it and states that “it has the most security features I've seen in a communication solution. Security is the most important thing for our purposes."

    Sample Customers
    PlayOn! Sports, NASA, Change Healthcare, FCBarcelona
    Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Energy/Utilities Company6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm39%
    Retailer10%
    Insurance Company9%
    Computer Software Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm37%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Government5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise64%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise82%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise74%
    Buyer's Guide
    Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Amazon SNS is ranked 3rd in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) with 11 reviews while IBM MQ is ranked 1st in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) with 158 reviews. Amazon SNS is rated 9.0, while IBM MQ is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Amazon SNS writes "The best service available with easy message flow and a pay-as-you-go model". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM MQ writes "Offers the ability to batch metadata transfers between systems that support MQ as the communication method". Amazon SNS is most compared with Amazon EventBridge, PubSub+ Event Broker and TIBCO Enterprise Message Service, whereas IBM MQ is most compared with ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka, VMware Tanzu Data Services, Red Hat AMQ and PubSub+ Event Broker. See our Amazon SNS vs. IBM MQ report.

    See our list of best Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) vendors.

    We monitor all Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.