Managing Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ engine versions

Apache ActiveMQ organizes version numbers according to semantic versioning specification as X.Y.Z. In Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ implementations, X denotes the major version, Y represents the minor version, and Z denotes the patch version number. Amazon MQ considers a version change to be major if the major version numbers change. For example, upgrading from version 5.17 to 6.0 is considered a major version upgrade. A version change is considered minor if only the minor or patch version number changes. For example, upgrading from version 5.17 to 5.18 is considered a minor version upgrade.

Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ recommends all brokers use the latest supported minor version. For instructions on how to upgrade your broker engine version, see Upgrading an Amazon MQ broker engine version.

Supported engine versions on Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ

The Amazon MQ version support calendar indicates when a broker engine version will reach end of support. When a version reaches end of support, Amazon MQ upgrades all brokers on this version to the next supported version automatically. This upgrade takes place during your broker's scheduled maintenance windows, within the 45 days following the end-of-support date.

Amazon MQ provides at least a 90 day notice before a version reaches end of support. We recommend upgrading your broker before the end-of-support date to prevent any disruptions. Additionally, you cannot create new brokers on versions scheduled for end of support within 30 days of the end of support date.

Apache ActiveMQ version	End of support on Amazon MQ
ActiveMQ 5.18 (recommended)
ActiveMQ 5.17
ActiveMQ 5.16	November 15, 2024
ActiveMQ 5.15	September 16, 2024

When you create a new Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ broker, you can specify any supported ActiveMQ engine version. If you do not specify the engine version number when creating a broker, Amazon MQ automatically defaults to the latest engine version number.

Engine version upgrades

You can manually upgrade your broker at any time to the next supported major or minor version. When you turn on automatic minor version upgrades, Amazon MQ will upgrade your broker to the latest supported patch version during the maintenance window.

For more information about manually upgrading your broker, see Upgrading an Amazon MQ broker engine version.

Listing supported engine versions

You can list all supported minor and major engine versions by using the describe-broker-instance-options AWS CLI command.

aws mq describe-broker-instance-options

To filter the results by engine and instance type use the --engine-type and --host-instance-type options as shown in the following.

aws mq describe-broker-instance-options --engine-type engine-type --host-instance-type instance-type

For example, to filter the results for ActiveMQ, and mq.m5.large instance type, replace engine-type with ACTIVEMQ and instance-type with mq.m5.large.