Behind the scenes, Magento does a surprising amount of work asynchronously — tasks that run in the background rather than making the customer wait. This is handled by a message queue, and the component that moves those messages around is called a message broker. RabbitMQ is the broker Magento is built to use, and ActiveMQ is a well-known alternative that merchants often ask about.
Understanding what these do helps explain another part of a complete Magento hosting environment.
What Is a Message Queue in Magento?
A message queue lets Magento hand off work to be processed in the background instead of during a customer's request. Jobs are placed on a queue, and separate background processes — consumers — pick them up and complete them.
Magento uses this pattern for tasks such as:
- Bulk actions in the admin, such as updating many products at once
- Asynchronous and bulk API operations
- Sending emails and notifications
- Other long-running work that should not block the storefront
Offloading these tasks keeps the store responsive and makes heavy operations more reliable.
The Default: A Database-Backed Queue
Out of the box, Magento can run its message queue using the MySQL database, with no separate broker required. This is simple and works for light workloads, but the database is not purpose-built for queuing, and it does not scale as well once background processing becomes significant.
Why RabbitMQ?
For stores that make real use of asynchronous processing, Magento is designed to use RabbitMQ as a dedicated message broker. RabbitMQ is purpose-built for exactly this job: it handles queued messages efficiently, delivers them reliably, and scales far better than a database-backed queue under load.
RabbitMQ is the broker Magento officially supports and documents, and some advanced features — particularly in Adobe Commerce — expect it to be present. If your store relies on bulk operations or asynchronous APIs, RabbitMQ is the recommended choice.
What About ActiveMQ?
ActiveMQ is another popular open-source message broker, widely used across enterprise and Java-based systems. Because it is so common in that world, people sometimes ask whether Magento can use it.
The honest answer is that ActiveMQ is not an officially supported broker for Magento. Magento's message queue is built around the AMQP protocol as implemented by RabbitMQ, and RabbitMQ is the broker the platform is tested and documented against. ActiveMQ is a capable broker in general, but for Magento specifically, RabbitMQ is the right tool — using an unsupported broker invites compatibility problems that are not worth the risk.
What This Means for Hosting
RabbitMQ is one more service that has to be provisioned, secured and kept healthy alongside the database, in-memory caching and search that Magento already depends on. Running it well takes the same kind of attention as the rest of the stack.
On managed hosting, this is handled by the provider as part of the environment, so background processing simply works without you having to operate the broker yourself.
Where MyShopCarts Fits
MyShopCarts provides and manages the services a Magento store needs as part of each store's isolated environment, so the supporting stack — including message queuing where it is used — is looked after for you. Magento's other key services are covered in why Magento needs Redis and why Magento needs OpenSearch, and the bigger picture in Magento hosting options.
Learn more about managed Magento hosting and choose a plan that fits your store.