Comparison

ActiveMQ vs RabbitMQ

No leader: the top candidate ActiveMQ has only 0.22 confidence (low), below the 0.35 needed to declare a winner. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
ActiveMQ67
RabbitMQ65
Score
Vioscale score
ActiveMQ67 / 100low · 22%
RabbitMQ65 / 100low · 38%
Pricing
Free tier
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Model
ActiveMQcommercial
RabbitMQcommercial
Price level
ActiveMQfree
RabbitMQlow
Transparent
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Adoption
Dependent repos
ActiveMQ7,528
RabbitMQ3
Github stars
ActiveMQ2,451
RabbitMQ13,807
Package downloads weekly
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ3,179,580
Activity
Commits last 30d
ActiveMQ39
RabbitMQ100
Release
Cadence days
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ9
History
ActiveMQ18 items
RabbitMQ20 items
License
Spdx
ActiveMQApache-2.0
RabbitMQBSD-3-Clause
Language
Primary
ActiveMQJava
RabbitMQJavaScript

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for message queues. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Core
Messaging paradigm
ActiveMQPub/sub
RabbitMQQueue
Correctness
Delivery guarantee
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQAt-least-once
Ordering guarantee
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ-
Durability
Durable replayable log
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Message replay / rewind
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ-
Interop
Wire protocol
ActiveMQAMQP, STOMP, MQTT, JMS
RabbitMQAMQP 1.0, MQTT 5.0, STOMP
Kafka-protocol compatible
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ-
Scale
Partitioned horizontal scaling
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Geo / cross-region replication
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ
Consumption
Consumer groups / competing consumers
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ
Dead-letter queue
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ-
Deployment
Managed cloud offering exists
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Hosting
ActiveMQCloud + self-hosted
RabbitMQCloud + self-hosted
Processing
Built-in stream processing
ActiveMQ-
RabbitMQ

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

ActiveMQ

A message broker that facilitates asynchronous communication between services regardless of programming language, using standardized protocols. Supports high-availability configurations and can be deployed on-premises or through managed cloud services.

Independently observed

RabbitMQ

A powerful, enterprise-grade open-source messaging and streaming broker that enables efficient, reliable and versatile communication for distributed microservices, real-time data, and IoT applications.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

ActiveMQ

Open sourceFree tier

Open source and free to download and use. Professional support available from commercial vendors.

as of verify ↗

RabbitMQ

HybridFree tier

Free open source, with commercial Tanzu RabbitMQ offering available

  • Open SourceFree
  • Tanzu RabbitMQContact sales
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Windows
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Linux
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
CLI
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
Self-hosted
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ
On-premise
ActiveMQ
RabbitMQ

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.