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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
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)
TIBCO Cloud API Management
Ranking in API Management
30th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
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 TIBCO Cloud API Management is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Amitava Roy - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers pre-built packages for quick and easy onboarding of APIs but configuration is not that easy
The configuration is not that easy. 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. There are certain things where the performance is not that great. When the traffic is huge, we see some lag in performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The statistics component is easy to use."
"Policy configurations are pretty easy."
"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 most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."
"The ability for all of our web applications to share standard functions and documents easily is valuable."
"It has all of the tools that are needed for the specific mission."
"This is a very easy to use solution."
"I have found IBM API Connect to be highly secure, efficient, easy to deploy, and has a great GUI. It can operate and integrate well with other vendors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft."
"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 platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token refresh, throttling, and enforcement of payloads."
"Very few outages or SLA issues."
"We can completely manage the APIs at the org level and BU (business unit) level."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to have different packages based on the API keys. The same core system can have different packages based on different environments."
"Conversion to RESTful and SOAP protocols and management console (can manage individually throttled settings to manage our service levels for customers)."
"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."
 

Cons

"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."
"The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this can be more decentralized components."
"Our main pain points are in these two areas: creating a better developer portal and improving stability in terms of synchronization and monetization."
"We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from IBM. I'd like to see increased flexibility, more frequent updates with new features, an efficient upgrade process, and additional AI capabilities for future releases."
"The administration of the user interface and the technical documentation are areas of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"There are some performance issues and issues related to asynchronous APIs."
"Components, like caching, should be implemented as policies, not requiring dependency on an external solution."
"In the next version, I don't know if they've already been included it or not, but the designer and all the tools should be on the cloud. I don't want any external installation or local installation."
"Policy management has been a bit of a concern."
"We observed delays under heavy load conditions, and without proper tuning, changes could take an extended period to filter and become effective."
"The management console of API and customers' applications are not the most intuitive."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management should improve its installation and make it easy."
"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."
"They can fix some stability issues and probably make it more user-friendly so that not only an IT savvy person but an end-user can also easily navigate through this solution."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"It is a pretty expensive tool."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"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."
"There was a need to purchase an upfront license or a one-time license or upfront license, but I cannot remember the details about it clearly."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"Licensing is quite flexible."
"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."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management is not an expensive solution."
"We have secured terms on which we have been happy to renew for a number of years."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
6%
 

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?
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?
The configuration is not that easy. 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. There are certain things whe...
 

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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.