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Apiary vs MuleSoft API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

Apiary
Ranking in API Management
37th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apiary is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

PW
The ability to configure rules to check for consistency has helped
Apiary provides a free tier of the platform which allows a small group of developers to collaborate easily on the design of open source APIs. In addition to this, it provides mock endpoints allowing people to experiment with the API without depending or having to stand up a real backend. With our clients, using Apiary allows us to very quickly pull together an API definition (particularly when using API Blueprint). The whole API design process for the simpler use cases can be done in a relatively short workshop which makes it a lot easier to agree, publish, version-manage an API definition with suitable documentation. This can then be evolved and enhanced (particularly in the documentation aspects). With the ability to support Swagger (Open API v2 and introducing/ed support for v3) and API Blueprint makes it a very versatile tool.
D.Rajesh Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved Integration Efficiency and Potential for Further Enhancements in Monitoring and User Experience
The policies in MuleSoft API Manager are significant features. We get the policies by default, with more than 25 out-of-the-box policies. If any additional requirement exists specific to the customer, there is a custom policy framework. We can build the policy according to our requirement, and deploy and enable it at the API Manager level to consume across different business groups, environments, or organizations altogether within the platform. Developing the custom policy is not challenging; you just need to follow the custom policy framework to implement. The custom policy and the different levels of SLAs of the API Manager are notable. Regarding the monitoring side of the API Manager, MuleSoft provides substantial monitoring with logs, offering search capability, raw data accessibility, and different subscriptions. With the top tier, integration with third-party platforms such as ELK or Splunk becomes unnecessary because all search capabilities, dashboards, and functional monitoring can be built within the platform itself. This is excellent from the monitoring perspective, and there have been recent improvements focusing on observability. For DevOps, if you want to make your continuous integration and continuous deployment effective, irrespective of the tool, there are options to integrate. For example, you can use the Maven plugin, platform APIs, or CLI to build your end-to-end DevOps cycle.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In two years, there was one time the service was down for an hour or so."
"Git integration"
"I find the generation of mock services very useful, especially when demonstrating for new consumers."
"Quick and easy way to share a new API design with teams."
"I do like the overall performance of the solution."
"The product improved data exchange processes by enhancing communication between various messaging queues. There was a heavy reliance on queues for indexing clusters and data transfer in this particular environment. The product facilitated the transfer of messages from one queue to another, ensuring data flow and processing across different topics."
"I found the authentication features very valuable, like how the tool provides client IDs and secrets and lets you apply authentication policies. We bought the Titanium package with analytics, which allowed us to do rate limiting and throttling. The API monitoring and alerting were also useful."
"The MuleSoft Exchange and the Experience Hub stand out as the most valuable features."
"The onboarding process significantly contributes to faster market access, and the effort reduced by 30 to 40% directly leads to savings in IT time and costs."
"The most important features are the API management and API development."
"If you adopt the whole platform, you can build composable applications. This will cut your time creating new applications and updating them – once you have everything running – by up to 50%."
"Its best feature is that its plugins are somewhat unique in the market. We have budgets, Prime membership, and pre-plugins available in the marketplace that we can use immediately."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
 

Cons

"I would like an integrated option to download a Swagger version of the definition."
"The Oracle release cycle is very bad because the patches only update once a year."
"Swagger (OpenAPI Specification) and Blueprint Support"
"MuleSoft has advanced features but is slower."
"The initial setup, if you go back three or three and a half years, definitely, for us, was complex."
"Not many stand-out features."
"In the next release, Mulesoft should make it easier for people who don't have the native connectors to build their own rather than using the APA from the power platform or outlet."
"There should be more pricing options or certain discounts for the education sector."
"I am not entirely satisfied with the support from MuleSoft. They can be slow in addressing security vulnerabilities, and transitioning versions is often their solution, with limited support windows causing difficulties in management decisions."
"The solution's price is high."
"Monetization and cataloging can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is easy to get started with personal (free) accounts, but a subscription is required for additional features."
"There is a free subscription option to start and try the service."
"The pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is an expensive solution."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"I'm unsure about licensing costs because I'm not the person who handles this. But, ballpark, it's probably somewhere around $300,000-$400,000 or something like that."
"The product is highly priced compared to other advanced software. It is affordable only for tier-one customers."
"It is extremely high, and I would rate it one out of ten."
"The product's main drawback is its cost. It's expensive for our company, and their recent change in pricing strategy last year complicated things further. That's the only thing we're not happy with."
"I think that it is pretty expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of software, it is easy to install and upgrade. While there are different things that ...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Anypoint API Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, salesforce.com, Bloomberg, GoodData, Viacom, Akamai Technologies, DigitalGlobe
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about Apiary vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.