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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
4th
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 August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Frends is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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."
"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."
"The product has valuable features for version control."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the low code environment, the drag-and-drop functionality, and the ability to drop the connectors on the fly, which are extremely helpful."
"Both the cloud and on-premises options are available. Customers can leverage the MuleSoft Cloud platform to deploy the applications or set up their own online infrastructure to deploy applications."
"Anypoint API Manager's most valuable feature is its connectors."
"If you adopt the whole platform, you can build composable applications. This will cut your time creating new applications and updating them – once you have everything running – by up to 50%."
"The entire offering and suite of tools that this solution provides have been very valuable. We are able to manage APIs on runtime on a cloud basis which has been very useful."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager has the most valuable data components and can integrate APIs across multiple microservices."
"The MuleSoft Exchange and the Experience Hub stand out as the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager are the API gateway, rate limiting, and orchestration."
 

Cons

"It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors."
"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."
"One of the primary areas for improvement is a more mobile-friendly interface for the control center."
"The solution could be improved in educational and onboarding areas."
"The most important thing that should be improved is that it is too heavy."
"The solution is missing a monetization module."
"The solution's price is high."
"Their studio performance is very slow, it requires a lot of memory, and should be improved."
"There is room for improvement in the automated access management area and in AI capabilities within the API Manager."
"I'd like to see improvements in API Exchange. Currently, we can only expose APIs publicly. I want to categorize some APIs and expose them just to internal stakeholders. It would be great if they could log in to a developer portal, see our current APIs, view Swagger or RAML docs, and try request-response payloads."
"There should be more pricing options or certain discounts for the education sector."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is quite fair."
"Recent changes in their pricing have removed this benefit, moving towards process-specific pricing."
"The product is highly priced compared to other advanced software. It is affordable only for tier-one customers."
"The price of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is very high."
"The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable."
"The pricing is very expensive, although you get a lot of power from the product."
"The pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"I think that it is pretty expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
56%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
5%
Construction Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.