We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and IBM Datapower Gateway based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions share mixed reviews on their ease of deployment.

Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

IBM API Connect users like the solution’s intuitive runtime capabilities, simple product creation, excellent hit rate, and easy-to-control monetization. However, they feel that documentation needs to be improved and there needs to be more cloud functionality.

IBM Datapower Gateway users like the solution’s performance and security features. Reviewers mention that it should be more user friendly and that its traceability needs to be improved.

Pricing: Users of both solutions say they are expensive.

Service and Support: IBM API Connect users share mixed reviews on technical support. The majority of IBM Datapower Gateway users are satisfied with the support they receive.

Comparison Results: All other things being equal, IBM Datapower Gateway has a slight edge in this comparison because it received higher marks than IBM API Connect in the service and support category.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway Report (Updated: July 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

July 2024

Download the complete report

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Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect

Ranking in API Management

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)

IBM DataPower Gateway

Ranking in API Management

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 7.3%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.5%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Unique Categories:

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

1.3%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

5.0%

Application Infrastructure

2.9%

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan

Solutions Architect at Synechron

Jan 15, 2024

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.

Read full review

Minar Baddireddi

Datapower Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

May 25, 2023

An easy-to-use solution for security purposes that is stable

We are using the solution for security purposes The solution's security feature is its most valuable feature. It is a costly product. So, it is not an open-source solution, making it costly. In the future, I would like to see an open-source version. I have been using IBM DataPower Gateway since…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM API Connect is a reliable and scalable solution."

"The product gathers data to measure API performance."

"WSRR is a powerful component for getting the endpoints."

"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 are stability and security."

"It is a very scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."

"I have found IBM API Connect to be highly secure, efficient, easy to deploy, and has a great GUI. It can operate and integrate well with other vendors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft."

More IBM API Connect pros

"The product is stable...The product is scalable."

"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."

"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."

"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."

"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."

"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

Cons

"The implementation process could benefit from improvements, as it may take some time to become accustomed to the deployment."

"I would like to see support for non-Java based services. We struggle a bit to be able to deploy and connect our .NET services because of things like data types. We had to map a couple of things. For one solution provider, we had to move them to .NET Core before we could use it properly. I would like to see more agnostic tool service platforms rather than moving it more towards Java or open source."

"The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit."

"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."

"Like any typical IBM infrastructure setup, you need to learn to set it up yourself. It's not one of those simple zip files or an archive unzip and you're up and running in some few minutes. Knowledge to set it up is key."

"We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security."

"Debugging could be improved."

"It should be cheaper."

More IBM API Connect cons

"I would like the tool to improve its training."

"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."

"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."

"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."

"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."

"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."

"It is a costly product."

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."

"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."

"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."

"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."

"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."

"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."

"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"It's expensive when you compare it with others."

"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 licensing cost is very expensive."

"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 appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

10%

Government

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?

We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from I...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

The price could be more flexible for different clients.

See all answers

Comparisons

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 15% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager vs IBM API Connect

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

3scale API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

Mule ESB vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Integration Bus vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

July 2024

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

July 2024

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Also Known As

No data available

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

Learn More

IBM

Overview

IBM API Connect is an enterprise-grade platform that provides a comprehensive solution for creating, securing, managing, sharing, monetizing, and analyzing APIs. Designed for cloud and on-premises deployment, it integrates seamlessly with various systems, ensuring robust security and enabling efficient API lifecycle management. The user feedback underscores its efficiency, user-friendly aspects, and practical customer support, making it a reliable choice for enterprises seeking to optimize their API strategies.

IBM API Connect provides end-to-end management of APIs, facilitating the creation, security, management, sharing, monetization, and analysis. It allows the creation of custom APIs, exposing the full capabilities of applications and ensuring thorough testing before deployment. The platform offers robust security features, applying out-of-the-box and custom gateway policies to protect back-end data and services. Users can manage the entire lifecycle of their APIs, including publishing, replacing, migrating, deprecating, and retiring.

API Connect includes a customizable portal for sharing APIs with developers, complete with built-in communication tools like blogs and forums. The solution offers comprehensive analytics for managing service levels, setting quotas, establishing controls, and analyzing trends.

IBM API Connect stands out as a versatile and robust API management solution. It is well-suited for organizations looking for a comprehensive tool to handle the entire lifecycle of their APIs with a focus on integration, security, and analytics.

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“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. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

RBL Bank, Availity

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

July 2024

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.

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