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Frends vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

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
29th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WSO2 API Manager
Ranking in API Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Frends is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 API Manager is 3.0%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WSO2 API Manager3.0%
Frends0.7%
Other96.3%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Lauri Vanhanen - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Manager at ELO
Integration platform has simplified logistics workflows and has streamlined complex order handling
The best aspect is that it is very easy to use. The UI is very intuitive, and you can learn it very quickly because the basic principles are straightforward and easy to search. Frends has a great UI, but the UI is missing role-based permissions. You can filter your integrations by roles and add several users to roles, but in the UI, the functionality for this kind of management feature is not optimal. User management or user role management could be improved.
MM
Manager, Integration Technical Delivery at United Delta
Middleware integration has become smoother and manages API lifecycles and scopes effectively
Regarding WSO2 API Manager, I have no drawbacks or areas for improvement. However, regarding the Micro Integrator, I had some issues while developing complex services because it was mainly designed to be used for simple services, not complex ones. While using complex services, I encountered some issues. I communicated this with WSO2, and they released other products that solved everything related to my concern. These products were released before my concern was raised. When I explored them, they were pretty good, and I did not see the same issues I had experienced. WSO2 is enhancing themselves, and their products are fine. The previous concern was about the previous product, so it is resolved now since there are new products available. I would like WSO2 to improve quality or response time in support, or both.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 user-friendly interface for constructing integration solutions is also a notable benefit."
"The product has valuable features for version control."
"The best aspect is that it is very easy to use."
"The solution is open source and easy to configure."
"Functionality-wise, I like WSO2 API Manager - Publisher API and WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus."
"The most beneficial feature of WSO2 API Manager is its capability to use Swagger to define and then populate the API."
"The user experience is what is most valuable to me."
"We could easily deploy APIs on WSO2 API Manager, and CORS configuration was easy to manage."
"WSO2 API Manager is easy to use."
"We use the vanilla version of the WSO2 API Manager and integrate additional features ourselves. The basic features of the API Manager, such as blacklisting and whitelisting, are very helpful. We also created dashboards."
"As far as I am aware this solution is the first API Publisher that allows you to create and publish API and to manage the API lifecycle."
 

Cons

"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."
"Logging should be better."
"One of the primary areas for improvement is a more mobile-friendly interface for the control center."
"It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors."
"I think they could greatly improve the general UX with their solutions."
"We had some problems with the reverse proxy not being able to invoke fully qualified domain names, so we have to build some custom scripts to solve this issue."
"The user interface provides all functionalities to configure and manage the product, however its usability, especially for first-time users, is a little bit rough compared to the UI of other commercial API Managers."
"The one complaint I get from our business team is the same: they find it not that user-friendly and this makes it more difficult for them to use."
"They are developing another platform called Choreo that allows you to create API itself using the WSO2 programming language Ballerina. It would be great if they added a direct connection between Choreo and API Manager, that would be great. I think they are working on that, but I'm not sure."
"WSO2 API Manager should improve its marketplace subscription model and documentation in order to reach a higher level in the market."
"WSO2 API Manager can be improved a lot relating to usability"
"The solution could be more user friendly for engineers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is quite fair."
"Recent changes in their pricing have removed this benefit, moving towards process-specific pricing."
"We have not opted for the paid version of WSO2 but we have implemented the free and open source WSO2 software to a great extent and it is working as per our expectation."
"The challenge is the increasing pricing, which has led some customers to consider alternatives, like using Spring Boot solutions instead. The rising costs, especially as cores and usage increase, have been a concern, prompting some to migrate to other products."
"It's not expensive, but it could be cheaper."
"We use the open-source version of WSO2 API Manager, there is no cost."
"It is costly, around ten thousand per year, per instance"
"My previous company paid about 1.2 million dollars, and my current company pays about 300k. Both companies are at the enterprise level."
"For our projects, we found the pricing to be a little high."
"WSO2 API Manager is a low-cost solution. It is one of the most affordable solutions."
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915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
33%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Frends?
Logging should be better. Third-party software logging should be integrated into the monitors of the front-end integrations, but it does not monitor the third-party connectors through that. Those l...
What is your primary use case for Frends?
We had many different applications for Frends. For file transferring of different types, we modified the files and then used it for logistical processes including warehousing, inventory checkups, a...
What advice do you have for others considering Frends?
If you need an integration platform, I would recommend Frends. I give this product a rating of 8 out of 10.
What needs improvement with WSO2 API Manager?
Regarding WSO2 API Manager, I have no drawbacks or areas for improvement. However, regarding the Micro Integrator, I had some issues while developing complex services because it was mainly designed...
What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?
My major use cases for WSO2 API Manager are mainly for system integration between multiple layers because we are working on the middleware layer between the systems.
What advice do you have for others considering WSO2 API Manager?
The thing that I hoped WSO2 had in their integration products, not WSO2 API Manager, was AI agents, and now they have this. I believe at this stage, they have the things that the market is going th...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
1. eBay 2. StubHub 3. Cisco 4. Verizon 5. T-Mobile 6. Vodafone 7. Orange 8. BT Group 9. Telstra 10. Deutsche Telekom 11. Swisscom 12. AT&T 13. Sprint 14. Telefonica 15. O2 16. British Airways 17. Lufthansa 18. Emirates 19. Qatar Airways 20. Etihad Airways 21. Air France 22. KLM 23. American Express 24. Visa 25. Mastercard 26. PayPal 27. Western Union 28. Citibank 29. HSBC 30. Barclays 31. Santander 32. Goldman Sachs
Find out what your peers are saying about Frends vs. WSO2 API Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.