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IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (4th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.4%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Quite flexible and provides excellent performance for API gateway
The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support, which can be considered quite expensive. In terms of new functionality, I think the analytics can be improved in V10. The analytics feature was better in the older version, 2.18. But in V10, it's not as flexible. When exporting analytics as KSP or JSON, it's not well formatted. They can work on enhancing the analytics part. Additionally, they can focus on reducing the hardware cost.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"WSRR is a powerful component for getting the endpoints."
"The developer portal has been the most useful feature."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is very easy to use and is something that is easily configurable."
"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."
"The solution is very scalable because it's on the cloud."
"Overall, I rate it nine out of ten."
"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."
"What I like most is the stability."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
 

Cons

"The solution is not scalable."
"It should be cheaper."
"Firstly, the pricing model, when compared to other open sources, is high. Secondly, the availability of resources in the market, specifically the developers available in the market, is not so much."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"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."
"There are some performance issues and issues related to asynchronous APIs."
"The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this can be more decentralized components."
"The solution could improve security and performance."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There was a need to purchase an upfront license or a one-time license or upfront license, but I cannot remember the details about it clearly."
"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Price depends on many factors like size of the deal, competitive factors, timing, customer profile or where the pricing for API Calls is very competitive comparing to any of the leader players.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side. Scalability is an issue with IBM API Connect, making it an area where improvements are required.
What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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