3scale API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

Red Hat and IBM are both solutions in the API Management category. Red Hat is ranked #19 with an average rating of 7.8, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.5. Red Hat holds a 2.4% mindshare in APIM, compared to IBM’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of IBM users who would recommend it.

3scale API Management

Read 11 3scale API Management reviews

2,942 Views
2,118 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 29 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

4,850 Views
3,464 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

3scale API Management

IBM DataPower Gateway

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM DataPower Gateway and 3scale API Management are two competing products in the API management sector. IBM exhibits stronger security features, whereas 3scale offers greater flexibility and ease of use, giving 3scale an edge for agile API integration.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway provides strong security, data validations, and encryption, making it reliable for organizations needing comprehensive data protection. The appliance version ensures high performance and easy integration. In contrast, 3scale API Management offers robust scalability, API automation, and easy integration with OpenShift clusters, making it highly adaptable for dynamic environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could enhance its deployment complexity and user interface design to improve accessibility. Additional customizable options for API traffic management would also be beneficial. 3scale could improve its advanced security features and extend the support for legacy systems. Enhancing logging capabilities can also foster better monitoring and usage tracking.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower has a complex deployment model, requiring specialized support but benefits from comprehensive inbuilt services. 3scale, however, provides a straightforward deployment process with reliable customer service, allowing users to manage deployments more easily with standard OpenShift practices.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway requires considerable initial investment but offers significant returns for enterprises prioritizing security. While setup costs are high, the long-term benefits in security justify the expenditure. 3scale API Management, on the other hand, is cost-effective with a competitive ROI, owing to its lightweight setup process, making it attractive for organizations looking for scalable, flexible solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed 3scale API Management vs. IBM DataPower Gateway Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

3scale API Management vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

June 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management

Ranking in API Management

19th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM DataPower Gateway

Ranking in API Management

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (8th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.0%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

Jose Luis Bonilla

CIO at Banco Pichincha España

Provides cost savings while maintaining the same functionality and capabilities

There were two main reasons for consideration. One of them was the cost. It is true that the other solution had more capabilities, but we didn't have plans to use them. We didn't need them, but the cost was slightly higher. Also, we were already working with the Red Hat solution and integrating it with some other solutions we have in place. It was better and more convenient for us. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Read full review

Mehdi El Filahi

Co-Founder at tenekit

Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts

While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The gateway is the most valuable feature because it makes it possible for us to gather all traffic into one proxy, which is a good thing."

"I like the API automation."

"To me, the most valuable feature of 3scale API Management is that it lets you add a backend to the product. I also like that you can integrate it well with OpenShift clusters, making 3scale API Management a useful solution."

"It's good that they aren't adding a lot of features like ESP, etc. It's okay with just being a gateway."

"The standard deployment is very simple."

"3scale API Management's best feature is API management."

"The product is stable."

"The most valuable features are the gateway and security features."

More 3scale API Management pros

"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."

"The scalability of the solution is good."

"The solution is robust."

"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

Cons

"What was suggested by Red Hat was a crucial part of the configuration, but when we started to ask about the supportability of this configuration, Red Hat said only some parts of the configuration would be supported."

"3scale API Management only supports restful APIs and doesn't support SOAP."

"The user experience could be better. The developer portal is too complex and hard to configure."

"What I'd like to improve in 3scale API Management is its route-limiting feature. Currently, I don't know how to do that effectively on the solution, but in Kong, I know how to do it, so I would love to see route-limiting being easily done on 3scale API Management. It would also be good if there was some authentication that you could do from 3scale API Management because Kong offers that functionality out of the box. What I'd love to see in the next release of 3scale API Management is the ability to integrate more plug-ins easily onto the platform, so you'll be able to extend it, and even do customs management. If Red Hat could offer that extension where it allows the internal organization where 3scale API Management is deployed on-premise to integrate its tools on top of 3scale API Management and provide an API for that, that will make the solution very powerful."

"The product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it."

"I believe the CMS part of it has room for improvement though. That is where you write a couple of things if you want to publish your API. It's based on liquid scripting, which doesn't seem like the obvious ones to script with."

"We tried to use the portal, but we decided that it wasn't enough. The content management system (CMS) is not easy to use if you want to customize things, and it's hard to get someone who has the knowledge to work with the CMS."

"It would be helpful to improve the customization features so that the customer can do it based on their own needs."

"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."

"Its support services could be better."

"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."

"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."

"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."

"It is a costly product."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"3scale API Management has reasonable pricing, judging from its competitor, Kong. My organization pays yearly for the 3scale API Management license, though I'm unable to give the exact figure because every single day there are new clusters deployed. I'm in charge of three to four clusters in my team, but give or take, it costs a few thousand lakhs."

"I don't think that 3scale is very expensive."

"The pricing is affordable, it's cheap."

"The cost was around $45,000 per year."

"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."

"The product is expensive."

"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."

"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."

"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

30%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about 3scale API Management?

The product is stable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?

I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with 3scale API Management?

The deployment process could be easier.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?

The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?

I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...

See all answers

Comparisons

Apigee vs 3scale API Management

Compared 18% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs 3scale API Management

Compared 15% of the time

IBM API Connect vs 3scale API Management

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs 3scale API Management

Compared 12% of the time

Apache APISIX vs 3scale API Management

Compared 3% of the time

More 3scale API Management Competitors

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 34% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

API Management

May 2025

Download 3scale API Management product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

April 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Also Known As

No data available

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

Overview

3scale is an API management platform that delivers flexible, highly scalable solutions to package, distribute, control, and monetize your APIs, giving you the power to make the most of your API program.

Share company data, content, or services through Web or mobile applications.
Provide an API to external organizations, internal teams, or both.
Avoid the hassle and constant maintenance of building a solution from scratch.

3scale delivers centralized API management features through a distributed, cloud-hosted layer. The platform includes built-in features to help you build a more successful API program, including access control, rate limits, payment gateway integration, and developer experience tools.

Red Hat

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

IBM

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform

RBL Bank, Availity

Buyer's Guide

3scale API Management vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

June 2025

Free Report: 3scale API Management vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

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