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IBM API Connect vs SAP Cloud Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 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
6.6
SAP Cloud Platform offers significant ROI, enhancing decision-making and efficiency, especially for large enterprises, despite varying return opinions.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
Top management buy-in is crucial, and conducting an ROI analysis is essential before adoption to ensure the investment aligns with value.
Orders are managed online, integrated with S/4HANA, reducing chances of fraud or communication errors in processes like purchase orders and sales.
 

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
6.5
SAP Cloud Platform's support is quick for critical issues, with varied experiences in response times and quality for others.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
The availability of knowledgeable support to the implementation partners and the customers could be better.
I rate the technical support as ten out of ten because there is often a need for continuous technical 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
7.4
SAP Cloud Platform is praised for scalability, with mostly positive reviews, ease of expansion, and minor challenges for some users.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate its scalability at nine and a half to ten.
SAP Cloud Platform is most suitable for various business needs, allowing easy expansion.
 

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
SAP Cloud Platform is reliable with frequent updates; stability is praised but issues sometimes arise due to external factors.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
If the databases are accurately managed, the solutions and processes are performed quickly and efficiently.
SAP Cloud Platform is pretty stable, although there are occasional rare glitches.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
SAP Cloud Platform struggles with cost, customization, integration, documentation, user interfaces, migration, third-party compatibility, and error analysis.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
SAP Cloud Platform should improve on integrating third-party applications with S/4HANA.
Allowing more third-party applications to be integrated into the cloud platform would make it easier for customers to adopt SAP Cloud Platform.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
SAP Cloud Platform features higher costs but offers flexible pricing and valued ERP solutions with discounts and negotiated rates.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
SAP is competitive compared to other enterprise solutions like Oracle, though not necessarily cheap.
The cost for SAP Cloud Platform is high as the server is expensive.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
SAP Cloud Platform offers robust integration, real-time data handling, and scalable solutions with strong security for streamlined operations.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
The most proficient feature of SAP Cloud Platform is integration for data services linked with Fiori apps.
It converts CapEx into OPEX due to its SaaS model.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
API Management (5th)
SAP Cloud Platform
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 SAP Cloud Platform is 8.4%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
 

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.
PinakiGhosh - PeerSpot reviewer
The implementation cycle has been reduced significantly but has room for integration enhancements
Our existing customers who are on ECC are on-premises. They are migrating to SAP Cloud Platform, specifically on S4HANA.  One of our clients was on SAP ECC on-premises, and they are moving to the cloud on S4HANA on the public cloud system.  We are supporting about 15 customers, mostly small to…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

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.
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with bo...
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expanding capabilities as well as acquiring greater storage space. These upgrades can ...
What do you like most about SAP Cloud Platform?
The product improved our company's business operations since we got value out of it.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP HANA Cloud Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Siemens, Shell & Volkswagen, Still, EarlySense, Roche, National Football League, Heidelberg University Hospital, In Mind Computing, The Timken Company, OPAL, EnterpriseJungle, Groupe Danone, Accenture, T-Systems, Sailing Team Germany, Sloan Valve
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. SAP Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.