IBM MQ vs. Pulsar CORE

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM MQ
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM MQ (formerly WebSphere MQ and MQSeries) is messaging middleware.
$5
per month
Pulsar CORE
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Pulsar is a social media monitoring platform offering social listening, owned channels analytics, and social CRM. Customers use Pulsar for brand tracking and campaign measurement. The platform includes 4 tools: TRAC: Social media listening across topics, audiences and content diffusion. CORE: Owned channels analytics to measure your content performance and audience growth. FLOW: Social customer relationship management and social media publishing. TEAM: Analyse your internal social networks…
$1,200
150,000 mentions
Pricing
IBM MQPulsar CORE
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
TRAC (starter package)
$1,200
150,000 mentions
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM MQPulsar CORE
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices listed are on a 'starting from' basis. All TRAC packages have unlimited user log-ins, unlimited search queries and are charged on the amount of mentions pulled in. Bespoke packages are available.
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
IBM MQPulsar CORE
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka
Score 8.4 out of 10
Mention
Mention
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka
Score 8.4 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM MQPulsar CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(42 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.4
(30 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(28 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM MQPulsar CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
In the context of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, IBM MQ plays a pivotal role in managing the substantial data streams emanating from interconnected devices. Its primary function is to guarantee the dependable transmission and processing of data, catering to a diverse range of IoT use cases, including but not limited to smart city initiatives, healthcare monitoring systems, and industrial automation solutions. In the telecommunications sector, IBM MQ is employed for message routing, call detail record (CDR) processing, and network management to ensure real-time data exchange and fault tolerance. When managing the supply chain and logistics, IBM MQ is used to ensure timely and accurate communication between different entities, including suppliers, warehouses, and transportation providers. IBM MQ can be cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations due to licensing and maintenance costs. In such cases, open-source or lightweight messaging solutions may be more appropriate. For scenarios requiring extremely low-latency, real-time data exchange, and high throughput, other messaging technologies, like Apache Kafka, may be more suitable due to their specialized design for such use cases.
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Pulsar
I think that Pulsar is a good tool for brands or agencies who have a set list of competitors or subbrands that they are looking to do a monthly/weekly comparison of engagement metrics. When you have the brand account inputted, the data is shown in a visually tangible way and easy to comprehend.
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Pros
IBM
  • The documentation is very clear,It is understandable and the support helps to configure it in the best way.
  • Server guidelines make it possible to get the most out of work management. It's broad, we can work with different operating systems, I really recommend using linux.
  • It is highly compatible with systems, brockers, applications, and data accumulation programs, it is possible to configure everything so that after the installation of programs, they can communicate with each other and then throw data to an external program that accumulates it and represents in clear details of steps to follow and make business decisions.
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Pulsar
  • Track engagements over time
  • Easy to use interface
  • Modern and updated display
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Cons
IBM
  • There is limitation on number of svrconn connections you can have to MQ on the mainframe which has been an major issue for us. This has been an issue for us for over 4 years and still no fix although I am aware IBM have been working on a solution over the last year.
  • When upgrading to MQ V9.3 on our MQ appliances there is no fall-back option. This was the same for MQ V9.2 upgrade from MQ V9.0. For production upgrades this I believe is not acceptable.
  • AMS is not supplied as part of the standard mainframe MQ licence. You need an extra licence. IBM tell customers how important security and protecting data is yet they still want to charge for this software. The cost of MQ on the mainframe is not cheap so I would expect AMS to be part of the base product.
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Pulsar
  • Unfortunately, when exporting data it is often hard to read in an easy format.
  • I've used other tools where you can get historical data once you put into the tool but Pulsar cannot do that.
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Pulsar
Pulsar is not a complex tool by any means. The interface is updated and comprehensive, and I've used multiple tools in the past where the interface was very outdated and exporting data was often a difficult process since it was not well organized. The tool works well in visualizing complex data.
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
The messages are delivered instantly with this software and it integrates with our technology stack, in terms of availability we only had one failure when we were doing some testing and integration with third parties, the features of this software make it always available and its deployment is easy for the company, it does not generate expenses due to failures
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Pulsar
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
IBM
There are very specific things that must be elevated to more specialized areas of support, but the common support is very agile when receiving questions or when we leave concerns in real time. I recommend the support of the program in this regard.
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Pulsar
I have not had to reach out to Pulsar support before but my coworkers have and said the support was good.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
We found IBM MQ very easy to get started and quick to learn by the new users with a short learning curve and seamlessly integrates with IBM products, and quick to perform self-service analytics and make informed business decisions. IBM MQ is also very straightforward in creating simple and best reports, which are very profitable and productive.
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Pulsar
I think that Pulsar is one of the more updated platforms that I have used and the metrics exported/shown in the dashboard are accurate. I think that some tools report inaccurate metrics gathered from social media platforms due to the new APIs, something that often causes confusion and lack of clarity.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • Positive- Message Reliability and Reduced downtime, increases the ROI many times.
  • Positive- Increased stability and enhanced customer experience
  • Negative- cost is very high - Both licensing and integration cost
  • Negative- Learning and training cost of IBM MQ is high as its complex to use and integrate
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Pulsar
  • Input into our algorithm for brand strength and stature
  • Quick engagement tracking
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ScreenShots

Pulsar CORE Screenshots

Screenshot of The activity dashboard gives you a thorough snapshot of all the key numbers in your datasetScreenshot of Pulsar TRAC advanced location detection gives you up to 100% geo-localised data by city, country and GPS coordinatesScreenshot of The Network map visualizes the engagement patterns within your audience and identifies the most influential usersScreenshot of Slice and dice the data with contextual, behavioural and content filtersScreenshot of See the bigger picture. Pulsar CORE gives you integrated brand-level metrics across all owned channels, so you can measure the total reach and engagement you're getting.