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IBM API Connect vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
IBM API Connect enhances profitability and efficiency by reducing development time, improving security, and enabling seamless system integration.
Sentiment score
7.2
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform reduces TCO, simplifies integration, and offers high ROI, though pricing may challenge smaller companies.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM API Connect support is proactive and expert but variable in speed, with regional availability challenges noted by users.
Sentiment score
6.8
Users praise MuleSoft's responsive support but suggest documentation and response time improvements; satisfaction varies with support levels.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
The support team is responsive and helpful.
The Salesforce team offers different levels of support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM API Connect offers excellent scalability through on-premise and cloud solutions, supporting enterprise-level operations and customization features.
Sentiment score
7.6
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is highly flexible and scalable but faces challenges with file sizes and scaling costs.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is quite scalable, and it meets our use cases with no issues preventing implementation.
MuleSoft provides the ability to scale, yet it is costly to do so.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect is generally stable and reliable, especially in government and banking, despite occasional upgrade issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform shows improved stability, minimal issues, and high reliability with optimized resource management in cloud environments.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform needs enhancements in processing, support, integration, and user interface for improved efficiency and usability.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
MuleSoft is considered expensive, so pricing is a major concern.
Currently, it uses other standards, but adopting OpenAPI, the standard in the market, would be beneficial.
When dealing with multiple transactions or trading, the system can lose control, and tracking becomes hectic.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform's pricing is complex and high, potentially deterring smaller organizations despite offering enterprise support.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
I do not know the specific costs, but given that it is part of MuleSoft, I suspect it is not cheap.
MuleSoft is considered one of the more expensive products in the market.
The platform reduces manual workload in maintaining infrastructure, but it does come with some cost considerations.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform excels with API management, integration features, a user-friendly interface, and robust data management capabilities.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform helps to standardize data integration approaches, making it easier to implement integration projects.
The most valuable feature is the full lifecycle management, including Anypoint Designer and Exchange, as well as Discofolio API.
The platform is integrated with Salesforce, making it preferable when using Salesforce products.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
API Management (4th)
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (3rd), Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (4th), Cloud Data Integration (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 2.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 10.6%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
 

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.
Tolulope A. Adeniji - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides application integration and reduces time and effort during upgrades
One of the most valuable aspects was its impact on reducing time and effort during upgrades. Previously, SAP upgrades required significant coordination with multiple teams. Now, thanks to our streamlined integration approach, the SAP team interacts primarily with the integration team. When changes are needed, we simply create a new version. This allows application teams to migrate gradually from the old version to the new one, without extensive involvement from the SAP team. Moreover, our approach has improved reliability by eliminating duplicated efforts. Previously, different teams would often duplicate data sets due to inefficiencies in data naming conventions. We centralized data integration, ensuring that all applications use the same data set.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?
I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?
This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.