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Azul Zulu 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

Azul Zulu
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (24th), AI Content Creation (11th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (7th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.0%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azul Zulu3.7%
IBM DataPower Gateway4.0%
Other92.3%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support
Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.
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

"We've had no issues with stability."
"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."
"The performance is good, it's been very stable, and the product is easy to integrate."
"The solution's technical support is excellent."
"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."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The whole purpose of this product is to provide high speed and high performance."
"The solution is robust, and we use the appliance version, which comes with good security features and troubleshooting tools, so we are happy with IBM DataPower."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"From a technical point of view, IBM DataPower Gateway performs quite well, so my team had no concerns at all in terms of performance, reliability, and stability."
 

Cons

"It needs a better update daemon. At this time the process is manual and could be an issue on multiple desktop deployments."
"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."
"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."
"Its support services could be better."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"I noticed that the Gateway Script libraries could be improved, as they are not covering everything I need."
"My experience with the pricing of this product is that pricing is too high and should be reduced."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The customization of the solution isn't as straightforward as we would like it to be."
 

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 cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"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."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
8%
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 needs improvement with Azul Zulu?
Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?
Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...
What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?
My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...
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

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.