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IBM API Connect vs Postman comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
8.2
Postman's streamlined API workflows enhance collaboration, reduce manual testing time, minimize errors, and improve productivity, leading to cost savings.
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
6.6
Users find Postman's documentation and community resources helpful, often managing issues independently without needing technical support.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
I appreciate the ease of using Postman, especially its desktop version, due to the features it offers such as cookie management and environment synchronization.
There is a lot of support available through forums and user groups, which has been sufficient for me.
 

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
7.2
Postman offers scalability for API testing across teams, suitable for basic tasks, with evolving features enhancing usability.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
Postman does not have database validation available, which affects its scalability.
This solution is scalable.
 

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
8.0
Postman is highly stable and reliable for API testing, with minimal issues and high user ratings for stability.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
I rate it ten out of ten for stability.
I have not experienced any issues or downtimes.
The tool is generally stable.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
Postman users seek improved automation, user interface, documentation, SOAP support, and better integrations, emphasizing beginner-friendly features and pricing.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
This feature would allow the response to be validated in the database as well.
One of the primary challenges with Postman is handling authentication issues, especially relating to tokens and passwords.
Something that could be better is the inclusion of another type of test, for example, end-to-end tests.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
Postman provides competitive pricing with flexible plans, starting from free to scalable, cost-effective licenses for enterprise needs.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
Postman is open-source, so the cost is minimal compared to commercial platforms.
Postman's pricing model includes a basic free version, which is favorable given the Professional enterprise options offered.
The price is low, making it a reasonable price for the product.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
Postman is popular for its user-friendly API testing, powerful automation, integration features, and seamless team collaboration capabilities.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
The desktop version's features like cookie management, environment compatibility, security settings, proxy integration, and data synchronization add significant value.
It is easy to install, as well as to learn, particularly for new users, even if they are not developers.
In Postman, we have collections that contain multiple endpoints that I can test.
 

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)
Postman
Ranking in API Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
API Monitoring Software (1st), API Testing Tools (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 Postman is 0.8%, up from 0.4% 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.
Anagha Mahadik - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution simplifies web service testing with impressive speed and accessibility
It is very easy for me to use and I highly prefer it compared to SoapUI and other products for performing its job. It is more handy and faster. It has impacted us very nicely. Postman is used for free by us. I'm not sure if there might be a paid version for multiple users. It is a very good product used for development. It is easy to install, as well as to learn, particularly for new users, even if they are not developers. I taught my business analyst to use it. I just showed them once, and it was easy for them to understand. For example, I gave them the URL and request format and asked them to test independently. They were able to use it on their own and do their testing as well. It was a good experience, especially for generally smart people, like those we usually hire in our company. It is pretty easy to explain, and learning it is not complex.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
Insurance Company
8%
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.
How does Postman compare with Apache JMeter?
Postman lets you easily define variables, which then get updated automatically. This is a huge time-saver and makes processes very efficient. We can also export the test cases we create and share t...
What do you like most about Postman?
The product is easy to implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Postman?
Postman is open-source, so the cost is minimal compared to commercial platforms.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
PayPal, Shopify, Microsoft, Adobe, Atlassian, Twitter, BestBuy, Coursera
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Postman and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.