IBM API Connect vs SwaggerHub comparison

IBM and SmartBear are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5, while SmartBear is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 6.4% mindshare in APIM, compared to SmartBear’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of SmartBear users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 76 IBM API Connect reviews

8,187 Views
4,398 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SwaggerHub

Read 10 SwaggerHub reviews

1,632 Views
1,215 Comparison Views

90% 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: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

June 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

4th

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

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

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

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

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

"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it protects our backend system. We are exposing services to external parties and using this solution to protect the backend system, and to have a navigation in between."

"The statistics component is easy to use."

"Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules."

"The solution offers a pretty good SLA."

"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to distribute work among our API developers, so we don't have to do all the work as IBM API Connect administrators and IBM DataPower administrators."

More IBM API Connect pros

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

"The scalability is endless."

"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."

"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."

"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."

"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."

More SwaggerHub pros

Cons

"The platform’s integration with the payment gateway needs enhancement. The setup process and support services could be improved."

"The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side."

"One thing about API Connect that could be improved is the security schemes. There are so many security schemes, and from a product perspective, IBM could improve the user experience of the configuration security scheme."

"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."

"It is expensive within this class of products."

"The solution is not scalable."

"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."

"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."

More IBM API Connect cons

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

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

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

"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."

"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."

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

"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 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 SwaggerHub cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect is quite pricey."

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

"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 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."

"It's an expensive product."

"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."

"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cheap."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Retailer

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?

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 25% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 7% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs SwaggerHub

Compared 26% of the time

Apigee vs SwaggerHub

Compared 19% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 9% of the time

Postman vs SwaggerHub

Compared 6% of the time

RapidAPI vs SwaggerHub

Compared 3% of the time

More SwaggerHub Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

June 2025

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

May 2025

Download SwaggerHub product report

Overview

IBM API Connect facilitates API management and integration in the financial sector. Companies use it to expose, secure, and manage APIs for banking, insurance, and fintech, deploying it on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution.

IBM API Connect focuses on creating and monetizing APIs while enabling seamless transactions and integration with third-party services. It is vital for compliance with regulations and enhances external communication among institutions. With deployment options suitable for different environments, it supports centralized gateway management, robust security features, and comprehensive API lifecycle management. Users benefit from powerful analytics, user-friendly interfaces, and high performance with capabilities in message transformation and efficient monitoring.

What are the most important features?

Centralized Gateway: Manages all APIs through a single entry point.
Robust Security: Ensures API protection with advanced security measures.
Comprehensive API Lifecycle Management: Covers creation, deployment, and retirement of APIs.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies API creation and management tasks.
Powerful Analytics: Provides insights into API usage and performance.
Seamless Integration: Connects easily with third-party services and internal systems.
Flexible Deployment Options: Supports on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
High Performance: Optimizes API performance and reduces latency.
Message Transformation: Manipulates and formats messages between different systems.
Visualization Tools: Enables clear and detailed views of API usage statistics.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

API Monetization: Generates additional revenue streams from APIs.
Enhanced Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry regulations and standards.
Improved External Communication: Facilitates integration and communication among financial institutions.
Technical Support: Benefit from reliable customer support and easy configuration.
Deployment Flexibility: Choose from on-premises, cloud, or hybrid options.

IBM API Connect is extensively implemented in the financial sector, enabling banking, insurance, and fintech services to manage APIs efficiently. Companies use it to ensure secure transactions, integration with third-party services, and compliance with regulatory standards. Its deployment flexibility accommodates different infrastructure needs, making it suitable for a wide range of financial applications.

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

June 2025

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

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