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IBM API Connect vs TIBCO Cloud API Management 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)
TIBCO Cloud API Management
Ranking in API Management
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Cloud API Management is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM API Connect6.0%
TIBCO Cloud API Management1.0%
Other93.0%
API Management
 

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.
AftabAlam - PeerSpot reviewer
Trust and reliability have been established with long-term usage and significant integration benefits
TIBCO Cloud API Management offers API management plus the ability to orchestrate all inbound and outbound API calls. When an API is exposed to the external system, it functions as a single integration. Behind the scenes, you can perform extensive API modeling, aggregation, and downstream systems can have more than one API and give the response back to a single API call. It has many features such as orchestration rule engine, which makes it quite good. TIBCO Cloud API Management has brought numerous benefits for our organization, especially in product maturity and support. Sales and support are strong areas, and I think it is very good. If they do not get the right support, then they should consider other options. The sales and support also provides cost optimization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The support is good and active. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"One of the most valuable features is that we can seamlessly and harmoniously expose our capabilities, from a security point of view."
"The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness."
"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 feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."
"It acts as a central gateway for both external APIs and underlying systems. It's basically a central middleware for hosting APIs to the internet and consuming APIs from internal systems. It provides central governance for any APIs going outside the network, ensuring security and a common contract for API definitions."
"Our version supports containerized integration. I can write APIs, which can be moved into a testing environment without needing a forklift. It can check if APIs are compliant before moving them into production."
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
"Very few outages or SLA issues."
"This has provided a new stream of traffic and exposure of our catalogue beyond the normal web store offering."
"The control that we have and the security features are very valuable. With regard to API implementation or API orchestration, it works very well in the cloud because as soon as you create an API with one click, you can actually expose your APIs."
"We can completely manage the APIs at the org level and BU (business unit) level."
"It has something called packages. In that way, it's good because we have some pre-built packages. So, if you want to onboard different APIs, we can just add them to the package, and it's there."
"The most valuable aspect of Mashery is its stability."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management has brought numerous benefits for our organization, especially in product maturity and support."
"The solution is a good general API manager. They have a few propriety features but are offering items that are standard in the industry as well."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution could improve security and performance."
"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."
"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."
"In terms of what needs improvement, some of the product documentation could be better."
"Extracting the data could be improved."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"Debugging could be improved."
"There are some areas for improvement in TIBCO Cloud API Management, especially regarding network protocols such as SMPP, SMTP, GVI, SVI, and Diameter which could show performance issues in terms of handling and connection management pooling efficiency."
"Monetization is not that great in API management. You need customization. Improvements are needed with sandbox local as well as with monetization. Those features are missing."
"It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the security layer on top of it, it's not that easy either."
"It lacks many features at the API gateway compared to other solutions."
"The security needs improvement, specifically, propagation of security to an API. Calling other APIs is something that is missing in the product and that makes us think about going to a competitor."
"The way agile life cycle is working needs improvement. I also want to see more support for open API standards. I want to see some improvement on the protocol transformation. That is quite missing now. These are the three main issues."
"Policy management has been a bit of a concern."
"I'd like to see TIBCO integrate authentication and security features into Mashery."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"API Connect is quite pricey."
"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"Its price is pretty reasonable. There are some lightweight API options available in the market, but given the feature set that TIBCO provides, its price is really reasonable."
"We have secured terms on which we have been happy to renew for a number of years."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management is not an expensive solution."
"Licensing is quite flexible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise59
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

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 do you like most about TIBCO Cloud API Management?
The platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token refresh, throttling, and enforcement of payloads.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Cloud API Management?
My primary role was to assess the solution from a capability perspective. So, there are some issues with the licensing cost.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Cloud API Management?
There are some areas for improvement in TIBCO Cloud API Management, especially regarding network protocols such as SMPP, SMTP, GVI, SVI, and Diameter which could show performance issues in terms of...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Mashery API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
uShip, Sabre, TouchTunes, Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, athenahealth, Coca-Cola Enterprises, CentralIndex.com, Constant Contact, Edmunds.com, FoodEssentials, Getty Images, Klout, Rovi, Rotten Tomatoes, Sportradar, TomTom, ACTIVE.com
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. TIBCO Cloud API Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.