IBM API Connect vs SwaggerHub comparison

IBM and SmartBear are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3, while SmartBear is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 6.1% mindshare in APIM, compared to SmartBear’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of SmartBear users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 76 IBM API Connect reviews

6,992 Views
6,782 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SwaggerHub

Read 10 SwaggerHub reviews

1,394 Views
1,394 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM API Connect

SwaggerHub

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and SwaggerHub serve overlapping use cases in the API management sector, but IBM API Connect seems to have the upper hand for large enterprises due to its integration capabilities and scalability, while SwaggerHub is preferred for its superior design and ease of use.

Features: IBM API Connect provides robust lifecycle API management, secure gateway services, and detailed analytics, making it ideal for enterprises managing APIs in large environments. SwaggerHub focuses on collaborative API design with auto-generated documentation and seamless integration with popular development environments, making it essential for teams prioritizing precision.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect could enhance user interface simplicity and streamline excessive configuration steps, improving onboarding for new users. Expanding its documentation resources and enhancing tools for real-time monitoring are also areas to consider. SwaggerHub, while excellent in API design, could improve its scalability for larger enterprise needs, expand integration options beyond popular development environments, and offer more robust analytics capabilities to enhance decision-making insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect offers a flexible deployment model, supporting both cloud and on-premises setups, with extensive support for seamless integration. Its customer service is strong, ensuring smooth deployment processes. SwaggerHub's cloud-based approach simplifies deployment for agile teams, supported by efficient design-focused customer service channels.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect involves a higher initial setup cost but offers substantial ROI through its comprehensive API management capabilities, particularly for enterprises with large-scale needs. SwaggerHub's more accessible pricing allows for quicker ROI through efficient design tools and faster deployment, appealing to budget-conscious organizations focused on rapid development.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

September 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

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

SwaggerHub

Ranking in API Management

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.1%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM API Connect	6.1%
SwaggerHub	1.4%
Other	92.5%

API Management

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan

Solutions Architect at Synechron

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

SwaminathanSubramanian

Director/Enterprise Solutions Architect, Technology Advisor at Kyndryl

Facilitating enterprise-wide API governance and management

Some areas of SwaggerHub that could be improved include the interface between the code editor and the visual editor, the integration with private APIs, which currently requires an upgraded account. The scalability also needs enhancement, as it becomes flaky under increased load. Additionally, the versioning management could be improved to be on par with source code management tools.

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

"We really like the runtime capabilities of IBM API Connect. The creation of products and the control of the monetization and hit rate are some of the features which we've found very valuable."

"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."

"This product is well integrated with other products. Its ability to interact with IBM Secure Gateway and other integration products is the core feature. Also, the lead time to put it into production is relatively short ."

"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."

"The technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."

"The management of the API and API portal is good."

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

"Security is well organized and managed within the solution."

More IBM API Connect pros

"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."

"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy and not at all difficult."

"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."

"It is quite a useful tool. It is quite good with the validation of the spec. It works quite well in terms of errors and conformity to the OpenAPI standard. It is better than Visual Studio Code in terms of editing."

"It is a stable solution."

"The scalability is endless."

"You can click & play and add the notation in a human-readable form. Spotlight is also very good in the graphical design of APIs."

More SwaggerHub pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement regarding the connectivity of the DevOps."

"The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support."

"There are some performance issues and issues related to asynchronous APIs."

"Firstly, the pricing model, when compared to other open sources, is high. Secondly, the availability of resources in the market, specifically the developers available in the market, is not so much."

"Components, like caching, should be implemented as policies, not requiring dependency on an external solution."

"Support for this platform could still be improved. It also needs to have more levels of versatility. Its compatibility and integration with different platforms also need improvement."

"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."

"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."

More IBM API Connect cons

"The scalability aspect of SwaggerHub can be improved. It becomes a bit unreliable when the load is increased and isn't up to par with expectations for scalability."

"Some areas of SwaggerHub that could be improved include the interface between the code editor and the visual editor, the integration with private APIs, which currently requires an upgraded account."

"SwaggerHub's UI needs to be improved as it looks very old school."

"SwaggerHub could be improved with better integration for tools."

"It has limited functionality...Unfortunately, some of its features are not what we need."

"We have to use additional tools to test APIs."

"The review process should be improved. There seem to be some gaps, at least for us, for the editing part because we would like to have a full request review mechanism. They support some comments, but it is really hard to manage those comments. We would like to use the full request. Therefore, we are now looking to integrate with repositories. It has integration with Bitbucket and GitHub, but we have some internal constraints, and we need to move some of the repositories to GitHub. Our source code is on-premise in Bitbucket, and it was a bit of a problem for us to integrate. Now we are transitioning our repositories to GitHub, and hopefully, we can enable the integration. This will probably solve the problem with the review and approval. Its customization should also be improved. There are limitations around the support for the developer portal. There should be more customization options for the website that you can use as a developer portal. Currently, it has only Swagger UI with minimal customization. You cannot actually add additional pages and documentation for explaining concepts and general things. That's why we have started to look around to see what other tools are doing. They should also allow tagging on the API. We would like to add some tagging on the API to reflect certain things. Currently, any metadata that you would like to have has to be a part of the spec. You cannot do anything else. It should also have support for Open API 3.1, which was released at the beginning of the year. It would be great to be able to switch to that."

"More integration and usability with the cloud microservices would be nice"

More SwaggerHub cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."

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

"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."

"Pricing for IBM API Connect varies, e.g. it could be subscription-based. Deploying it on private cloud also means you have to own most of the software licensing."

"It is an expensive solution. The licensing model is based on a per-subscription and per-subscriber end-user basis, meaning the price is determined by the end-users of the platform."

"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."

"It's an expensive product."

"The pricing is significantly high."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"It has a yearly subscription, but I am not sure."

"The tool is cheap."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Insurance Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	58

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	7

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?

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about SwaggerHub?

The tool's most valuable feature is licensing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?

I started using SwaggerHub in its previous version, SmartMiner, with a tool called SoapUI. I used it to create mock web services to test web services and create test scripts and mock APIs. This usa...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 27% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs SwaggerHub

Compared 24% of the time

Apigee vs SwaggerHub

Compared 19% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 10% of the time

Postman Enterprise vs SwaggerHub

Compared 9% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs SwaggerHub

Compared 6% of the time

More SwaggerHub Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

September 2025

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

August 2025

Download SwaggerHub product report

Overview

IBM API Connect is an API management tool providing robust security, seamless REST and SOAP conversion, and flexible deployment options for diverse cloud environments. It aids organizations in securing and monetizing their APIs while streamlining the development process.

IBM API Connect offers features like a security gateway, API lifecycle management, and integration with DataPower. Its intuitive interface enhances ease of use, supporting extensive analytics and traffic management. However, there are areas for improvement in automation, system integration, and user configuration. Organizations can deploy API Connect on-premises or in the cloud, delivering secure access control and analytics for banking, financial services, and government sectors. Compliance with standards like PSD2 ensures secure external API exposure and integration with multiple systems.

What are the most important features of IBM API Connect?

Security Gateway: Provides robust protection and data security for APIs.
Seamless Conversion: Facilitates easy conversion between REST and SOAP protocols.
API Management: Supports full API lifecycle management for efficient development.
DataPower Integration: Integrates seamlessly with DataPower for enhanced functionality.
Developer Portal: Offers a user-friendly interface for managing APIs and developers.
Analytics: Delivers powerful insights through comprehensive API analytics.
Flexible Deployment: Supports deployment on different cloud platforms for versatility.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from IBM API Connect?

Traffic Management: Efficiently manages high volumes of API traffic without compromising performance.
Data Protection: Ensures data is protected during API communication.
API Monetization: Facilitates API monetization strategies to drive revenue.
Scalability: Provides scalable solutions to handle growing demands seamlessly.

In specific industries like banking, financial services, and government sectors, IBM API Connect plays a crucial role in API management, orchestration, and regulation tasks. It provides secure access, control, and compliance with industry standards, serving as an essential gateway for data exchange and integration across multiple systems.

IBM

SwaggerHub is an integrated API Development platform, built for teams, that brings the core capabilities of the Swagger framework to design, build, document and deploy APIs. SwaggerHub enables development teams to collaborate and coordinate the entire lifecycle of an API with the flexibility to integrate with the toolset of your choice.

SmartBear

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

September 2025

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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