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Frends 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

Frends
Ranking in API Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
5th
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 October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Frends is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 5.0%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MuleSoft API Manager5.0%
Frends0.3%
Other94.7%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Kalle Reponen - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers simplicity, ease of customization, and visibility of integrations
One thing is that Frends keep the integration, and that is something I know that it's coming, like, a later version; that is something we will be currently missing. So the end-users could take an interest in use by themselves, with the release thing some result flow. That is the most wanted and requested feature for now. Another enhancement includes the monitoring part. It would be nice to have some sort of maybe mobile app on which we can see how integrations are running if there are some problems, and getting those alerts on the mobile would be really nice.
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

"The user-friendly interface for constructing integration solutions is also a notable benefit."
"The product has valuable features for version control."
"One of the benefits is the speed of creating something new. Second, it's replacing the old integration quite fast. Then it is like the visibility of the integration and the possibility to see what is happening in the integration."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is a low-code product."
"The solution has a feature called Flex, which is a low-latency API layer for passthrough APIs where you want data mapping but with very low latency and high scalability."
"It provides all of the robust platform-enabled features."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to investigate APIs."
"Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager's most valuable aspect is it has plenty of features."
"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."
"We're using MuleSoft API Manager to integrate with an endpoint in our backend system to import much information into Salesforce. Other tools didn't allow for as many API calls, so we used it to create a new endpoint."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is a great solution. I like it very much because of its speed of delivery and because it allows API-led integration."
 

Cons

"It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors."
"One of the primary areas for improvement is a more mobile-friendly interface for the control center."
"Another enhancement includes the monitoring part. It would be nice to have some sort of maybe mobile app on which we can see how integrations are running if there are some problems, and getting those alerts on the mobile would be really nice."
"It can offer workflows, orchestration, and webhooks."
"One improvement is maybe to add a plugin in the API manager. Let's say an organisation is using SOAP services or legacy APIs. Maybe I don't want to migrate it to rest API, but my plugin should be able to convert Jason to XML. Basically, protocol transformation features in API Manager."
"The API gateway and API runtime are too heavy, which means that it is not suitable for microservices."
"When discussing potential enhancements overall, it primarily involves making it more user-friendly and lowering the pricing. There are several aspects that could benefit from improvement, or perhaps a few other areas to consider."
"The dashboards in Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager could improve."
"Anypoint could be improved by making it more open and configurable for small companies, who tend not to consider the solution as it's expensive and requires a lot of costs upfront."
"There are some loopholes in the security policies that could be improved."
"The most important thing that should be improved is that it is too heavy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Recent changes in their pricing have removed this benefit, moving towards process-specific pricing."
"The pricing is quite fair."
"The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable."
"When it comes to determining price, the pre-sales team interacts with the customer's primary integration team and the price is negotiated based on the specific usage of the system."
"Anypoint is the most expensive solution on the market, as far as I know, though it's also the most capable."
"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."
"It is really expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective."
"The pricing is very expensive, although you get a lot of power from the product."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
59%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
5%
Construction Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Frends?
The product has valuable features for version control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Frends?
The pricing is quite fair. It is quite low compared to competitors, especially when you consider that Frends is a US-based company. So, it's almost cheap compared to them. But, we have an unlimited...
What needs improvement with Frends?
It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors. Basic features like reading and editing into Excel file format could be included.
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

Information Not Available
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 Frends vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.