Cleo Integration Cloud Platform vs Mule ESB comparison

The compared Cleo and Salesforce solutions aren't in the same category. Cleo is ranked #14 in BBM , and holds a 3.3% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #1 in E , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 17.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cleo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Cleo Integration Cloud Plat...

Read 1 Cleo Integration Cloud Platform review

500 Views
455 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 54 Mule ESB reviews

3,930 Views
3,026 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Cleo Integration Cloud Plat...

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cleo Integration Cloud Platform and Mule ESB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Informatica, IBM and others in Business-to-Business Middleware.

To learn more, read our detailed Business-to-Business Middleware Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 885,789 peers since 2012

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

Cleo Integration Cloud Plat...

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business-to-Business Middleware (14th)

Mule ESB

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. Cleo Integration Cloud Platform is designed for Business-to-Business Middleware and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, up 2.2% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 17.0% mindshare, down 21.0% since last year.

Business-to-Business Middleware Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cleo Integration Cloud Platform	3.3%
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services	13.2%
SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite	10.9%
Other	72.6%

Business-to-Business Middleware

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Mule ESB	17.0%
IBM Integration Bus	17.1%
webMethods.io	8.6%
Other	57.3%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

Joshua Rule

Senior Integration Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Though the tool reduces the internal hosting cost for businesses, it needs to provide more API integrations

I think it would be good and helpful if the solution provides access to other protocols besides AS2. Currently, the solution fails to provide users with additional protocol assistance and API integrations, so the aforementioned areas need to be considered for improvement. I wouldn't necessarily want to see any additional features included in the solution since it is already a robust product.

Read full review

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Integration architecture has enabled reliable multi-channel messaging and secure API management but now needs better analytics and simpler development

In my opinion, the real-time analytics part of Mule ESB is not up to the mark for the decision-making process. While there are some analytics features, they lack the standards needed for enterprise use. Compared to other analytics tools such as Power BI, MuleSoft falls short.Points for improvement in Mule ESB definitely include enhancing the analytics capabilities because currently, they rely on external logging tools such as Splunk or ELK, which is lagging behind compared to other tools such as Workato that offer more analytical features. Additionally, issues arise with AI-based use cases due to dependencies on Salesforce tools such as agent force, making development more complicated when it should be more independent. Developing AI-based agents without being tied to Salesforce applications could also enhance functionality.

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 most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of use it provides. Cleo Integration Cloud Platform is a straightforward and simple product."

"It's open source, and there are a lot of community resources. Mule ESB makes it easy to connect to other software applications."

"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."

"The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily."

"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."

"The best features of this solution are that everything we get into a single platform, whether it's integration, API, or data modeling; everything is available in one platform."

"Mule ESB is quite lightweight."

"This tool has exceptional API management and integration connectors in addition to multiple out of the box connectors."

"The setup is straightforward."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"Currently, the solution fails to provide users with additional protocol assistance and API integrations, so the aforementioned areas need to be considered for improvement."

"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."

"Improvements could be made in performance."

"I think using Anypoint Studio at the beginning can be seen as not straightforward, especially when dealing with the visual editor."

"In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the generator for the DataWeave language so that it's a little more graphic."

"MuleSoft isn't as mature as some other integration technologies out there like IBM WebSphere."

"The solution isn't as stable as we'd like it to be. There are some ongoing issues and therefore Mule has to provide frequent patches. Mule's core IP should be more stable overall."

"There are some features on the commercial version of the solution that would be great if they were on the community version. Additionally, if they added more authorization features it would be helpful."

"Mule ESB is a costly solution."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I learned that the product's price is reasonable based on the interactions I had with my company's purchase team."

"I think the price is very high. If you use TIBCO BW, the license is for the CPU usage, then the IPS, and support. I also think the license for the product is a one-time expense."

"The pricing must be improved."

"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."

"Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."

"Mule ESB is a costly solution. We pay approximately $80,000 annually for the system. The cost of the number of instances, annual subscription, and cloud hosting services are expensive."

"You will not get any support from Mule ESB's team for the tool's community edition...You can get support with the licensed version of Mule ESB."

"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."

"Regarding licensing and pricing, I find it somewhat flexible. They are more flexible with larger customers compared to small and medium ones, as their licensing model depends on ports and other factors. Large customers benefit from more flexibility in implementation and renewal compared to smaller ones."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business-to-Business Middleware solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company

I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...

See all answers

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?

Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mule ESB?

In terms of costing, I consider it 50-50; I would not say it's 100% cost-effective because the platform itself is a little costly. We are trying to improve how efficiently we make our ecosystem. It...

See all answers

Comparisons

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs Cleo Integration Cloud Platform

Compared 20% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Cleo Integration Cloud Platform

Compared 16% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY B2B Integration vs Cleo Integration Cloud Platform

Compared 13% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Cleo Integration Cloud Platform

Compared 13% of the time

webMethods.io vs Cleo Integration Cloud Platform

Compared 13% of the time

More Cleo Integration Cloud Platform Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 30% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 6% of the time

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Fuse vs Mule ESB

Compared 5% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

March 2026

Download Cleo Integration Cloud Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

March 2026

Download Mule ESB product report

Also Known As

Extol Business Integrator

No data available

Overview

A single, cohesive integration platform for end-to-end B2B, application, and data integration across your entire ecosystem. Cleo Integration Cloud is the industry's only integration platform designed to take an "outside-in" approach focused on delivering business outcomes. No matter the integration, Cleo Integration Cloud has you covered.

https://www.cleo.com/

Cleo

For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

USA Truck, Burris Logic, Dot Foods, The Apparel Group, Delta Dental

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

March 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Informatica, IBM and others in Business-to-Business Middleware. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Business-to-Business Middleware reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.