Pipe vs msg queue

Off the top of my head and assuming you talk about posix message queues (not the SysV ones):

• Pipes aren't limited in size, message queues are.
• Pipes can be integrated in systems using file descriptors, message queues have their own set of functions, though linux supports select(), poll(), epoll() and friends on the mqd_t.
• Pipes, once closed, require some amount of cooperation on both sides to reestablish them, message queues can be closed and reopened on either side without the coorporation of the other side.
• Pipes are flat, much like a stream, to impose a message structure you would have to implement a protocol on both sides, message queues are message oriented already, no care has to be taken to get, say, the fifth message in the queue.

They are very different things, really.

The biggest practical difference is that a pipe doesn't have the notion of "messages", it's just a pipe to write() bytes to and read() bytes from. The receiving end must have a way to know what piece of data constitute a "message" in your program, and you must implement that yourself. Furthermore the order of bytes is defined: bytes will come out in the order you put them in. And, generally speaking, it has one input and one output.

A message queue is used to transfer "messages", which have a type and size. So the receiving end can just wait for one "message" with a certain type, and you don't have to worry if this is complete or not. Several processes may send to and receive from the same queue.

see man mq_overview and/or man svipc for more information.