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Apollo GraphOS vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Apollo GraphOS
Ranking in API Management
29th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (7th), Application Infrastructure (11th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apollo GraphOS is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.4%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway3.4%
Apollo GraphOS0.7%
Other95.9%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

NA
Artificial Intelligence Consultant at Medallion Technologies
Access data seamlessly with robust community support without current improvement needs
So far, I could say that Apollo GraphOS is quite comprehensive, there’s room for improvement in schema collaboration tools, especially in large teams where multiple developers are working on overlapping parts of the API. More granular access control and role-based visibility within the platform would help enterprise teams better manage who can change what. Enhanced support for real-time use cases (e.g., subscriptions at scale) could also take it to the next level and give a better developer experience These might also be beneficial to have a more in-depth analytics around client usage and field-level insights to drive better decisions around deprecation or optimization.
AkshaySawant - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
Security features excel but development limitations emerge
We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apollo GraphOS has significantly enhanced both the developer experience and product delivery timelines by offering a centralized approach to managing GraphQL schemas and services, helping reduce overhead and improve collaboration between frontend and backend teams."
"Apollo GraphOS has positively impacted our organization by reducing unwanted code and helping us combine multiple services."
"The most valuable features of Apollo GraphOS OS for me are its security and authentication processes."
"IBM DataPower Gateway has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to implement rate limits on the different API usage, which is the benefit."
"The solution is robust."
"For me, its most valuable features include: the fact that it's high-speed, its ability to be remotely administered via an API, the fact that it can deal with multiple protocols, and it's very quick to make changes to the setup."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"IBM is a huge organization in comparison to most of the competition, it has massive development and offers very high-quality products."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The solution's technical support is excellent."
 

Cons

"Apollo GraphOS OS is using a detailed project, and it can be time-consuming because it has a lot of data to manage. It sometimes takes longer than three seconds, which can affect loading times and lead to user dissatisfaction. I would like to see improved performance."
"There’s room for improvement in schema collaboration tools, especially in large teams where multiple developers are working on overlapping parts of the API."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"API management launched two years back and we consider it quite unstable because we still face a lot of bugs."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"New users just starting with this product find it a little complex or difficult to use, compared to other products such as AWS."
"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."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is 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."
"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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
University
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apollo GraphOS?
I am not sensitive to nor very knowledgeable about the pricing and setup cost.
What needs improvement with Apollo GraphOS?
Apollo GraphOS is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where it could improve. The onboarding experience could be simpler for teams that are new to GraphQL. There are many powerful capabili...
What is your primary use case for Apollo GraphOS?
My main use case for Apollo GraphOS is managing and monitoring GraphQL APIs across multiple services. From a quality engineering perspective, I use it to understand schema changes, identify potenti...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I don't know if the current licensing cost of IBM DataPower Gateway is high, but I think it's acceptable. I don't have any complaints about it.
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
I noticed that the Gateway Script libraries could be improved, as they are not covering everything I need.
What is your primary use case for IBM DataPower Gateway?
The primary purposes for which IBM DataPower Gateway is used include security purposes, and sometimes you need to put some configurations and mapping into the process.
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about Apollo GraphOS vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.