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Flowgear vs IBM API Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 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

Flowgear
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
23rd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM API Connect
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
API Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) category, the mindshare of Flowgear is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM API Connect is 2.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Fulufhelo Sibei - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast support, good data ingestion, and a nice UI
I am happy with the product. It has solved our business challenges. It is easy to integrate into multiple sources. We did have to use a data transformation tool which would take months to map and transform data that was being dumped into our secure file transfer. Previously, by the time we finished ingesting the data, it was no longer relevant. This has since changed. Therefore, there are no areas needed for improvement.
Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features
While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Great for data flow."
"The no-code visual front end, along with pre-built samples, allows someone with very little technical ability to get an integration up and running."
"Being able to seamlessly make changes to how one can do mapping visually without having to be a seasoned developer is great."
"The Flowgear tool is helping us reduce the manual work that is done."
"Well-managed version control of workflows and the simplicity in promoting workflows through each environment has aided my team in developing workflows for various environments without the risk of losing development work."
"It has improved our integration with our data supplier."
"The solution has increased efficiency and productivity and saved us time and money."
"The gateway is the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."
"In-built policies and security functions."
"Using API Connect allows us to quickly create proxy APIs and saves time on end-to-end testing, which lets us deliver quickly to clients."
"It acts as a central gateway for both external APIs and underlying systems. It's basically a central middleware for hosting APIs to the internet and consuming APIs from internal systems. It provides central governance for any APIs going outside the network, ensuring security and a common contract for API definitions."
"The support is good and active. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
 

Cons

"The product would be nice if it could provide the deployment features in the lower packages."
"We would like to see more learning videos for beginners."
"The initial setup was a bit complex as we were new."
"The UI could be improved."
"The product needs to improve the self-help tools and samples."
"Currently, when designing and testing larger workflows, the sessions timeout and re-authentications are frequently required."
"The software itself needs to keep up with the daily demand to service all clients as the need arises."
"One thing about API Connect that could be improved is the security schemes. There are so many security schemes, and from a product perspective, IBM could improve the user experience of the configuration security scheme."
"The solution is overly complex."
"Understanding the architecture, deployment criteria, and communication methods of the installation can be time-consuming."
"We've had some issues upgrading to the latest version of the solution."
"When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ."
"Business applications could be exposed to users."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."
"It is a pretty expensive tool."
"API Connect was highly expensive for us, but the decision to switch was made before I joined the company. It seems like the company bought it, but they didn't know how to use it. After two years, they decided to reevaluate and conduct some cost estimates."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"I haven't seen anyone go from on-premise to the cloud. In fact, I am seeing people go from the cloud to on-premise because the costs can quickly grow on the cloud."
"Pricing for IBM API Connect varies, e.g. it could be subscription-based. Deploying it on private cloud also means you have to own most of the software licensing."
"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."
"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments. I don't deal with licensing, but compared to other IBM products, the licensing is not significantly higher.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ ( /categories/message-queue-mq...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Flowgear vs. IBM API Connect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.