Amazon SQS vs Apache RocketMQ
Amazon SQS
aws.amazon.comApache RocketMQ
rocketmq.apache.orgSide by side
| Figure | Amazon SQS | Apache RocketMQ |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 2 |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 8.7 (#5) | 8.9 (#4) |
| Spec score · Message Queue (MQ) Software | 8.7 (#5) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Licence | Amazon SQS is proprietary software rather than an open-source product. | The source distribution is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, a permissive licence allowing modification and redistribution subject to its notices and conditions. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.3 out of 5 from 143 reviews. | 4.5 out of 5 from 19 reviews |
| Security | Server-side encryption uses AWS KMS keys to encrypt messages when SQS receives them and decrypt them for authorized consumers. | RocketMQ provides ACL and TLS, but operators must configure ACL or restrict access to trusted networks; the security guide warns that ACL is not enabled by default. |
| Self-hosting | SQS is delivered as an AWS managed service; the product pages describe console, API and SDK access rather than a self-hosted edition. | Users can download source or binary packages and run NameServer, Broker and Proxy themselves. |
| Use cases | SQS lets software components send, store, and receive messages, supporting decoupled and event-driven applications. | Its asynchronous model is suited to decoupling systems and shifting loads between upstream and downstream services. |
| What it does | Amazon SQS is a fully managed queue service for moving messages between distributed application components, microservices and serverless workloads. | Apache RocketMQ is a distributed messaging and streaming platform designed for low latency, high throughput, reliability and very large scale. |
Plans
Amazon SQS
- Free TierFree
- Standard queuesPriced on request
- FIFO queuesPriced on request
- Amazon SQS Free TierFree
- Pay-as-you-goPrice not published
Apache RocketMQ
- Apache RocketMQFree
- Apache RocketMQ open-source distributionFree
In their own words
Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS is a cloud message queuing service for microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. It lets separate software components send, store, and receive messages, supporting decoupled and event-driven designs. Standard queues provide at-least-once delivery with best-effort ordering, while FIFO queues preserve order without introducing duplicates. Standard queues support nearly unlimited transactions per second for each API action; FIFO high-throughput mode supports up to 70,000 messages per second without batching. Messages can contain up to 256 KB, or larger payloads can use the Java Extended Client Library with Amazon S3. SQS accepts batches of up to 10 messages and retains messages for up to 14 days. Dead Letter Queues handle messages exceeding a configured receive count and must match the source queue type. Integrations include Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS, EC2, ECS, Lambda, S3, and SNS fanout. Server-side encryption uses AWS KMS keys. The Free Tier is free for 1 million requests; separate S3, KMS, and data-transfer charges may apply.
Apache RocketMQ
Apache RocketMQ is distributed middleware for asynchronous communication and publish/subscribe messaging. Its asynchronous model can separate systems and shift loads between upstream and downstream services. Messaging options include publish/subscribe, request/reply, streaming, transactional messages, FIFO ordering, filtering, and push or pull consumption. The project lists durable persistence, replication, failover, fault tolerance, high-availability options, and cross-region disaster recovery. Its site describes million-level LiteTopics per cluster and says RocketMQ has demonstrated 10M+ TPS throughput. It can run locally, in Docker, or Kubernetes, with source and binary packages available. The ecosystem includes EventBridge, MQTT, RocketMQ Connect, RocketMQ Streams, Spring, Flink, Prometheus Exporter, and a Kubernetes Operator; AI options include native MCP support, A2A compatibility, and integrations with LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, AgentScope, Dify, and Coze. The project lists gRPC SDKs for Java, Go, Python, C++, and Rust, plus gRPC, MQTT, JMS, and OpenMessaging protocols. It is free under Apache License 2.0. ACL is not enabled by default.