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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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.3%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.0%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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

"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."
"The gateway is the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules."
"Since it runs on top of Datapower, all Datapower based custom policies can be utilized and exported to API connect but its not straightforward/simple process."
"The technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."
"It gives a holistic environment for us to set up the APIs and that's the main value that it adds. It gives end to end for us."
"The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness."
"The developer portal has been the most useful feature."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"If you have an API application in your organization that you want to make safe and secure, in addition to your existing WAF or load balancer, this product comes with all those capabilities:"
 

Cons

"The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit."
"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."
"We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from IBM. I'd like to see increased flexibility, more frequent updates with new features, an efficient upgrade process, and additional AI capabilities for future releases."
"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."
"They seem to have left out a feature for microservices and also a certification module for OIDC."
"Installation is weak."
"Components, like caching, should be implemented as policies, not requiring dependency on an external solution."
"The administration of the user interface and the technical documentation are areas of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"It is a costly product."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect is quite pricey."
"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."
"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"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."
"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."
"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."
"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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
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?
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...
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: June 2025.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.