IBM API Connect vs Tyk comparison

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IBM API Connect

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and Tyk are competing in the API management space. IBM API Connect leads in integration and enterprise-level support while Tyk surpasses in customization and developer experience.

Features: IBM API Connect offers comprehensive analytics, advanced security features, and extensive enterprise integration support, making it ideal for large-scale operations. Tyk features open-source architecture, flexible plugin support, and ease of customization, which benefit developer-centric environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect could improve in reducing initial setup complexity, expanding flexibility for smaller teams, and enhancing open-source capabilities. Tyk can enhance enterprise-level support, increase integration options with other enterprise solutions, and improve scalability for very large deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect uses a traditional deployment model with robust customer support suitable for large enterprises. Tyk supports cloud-native deployments, offering flexibility and drawing on ample community resources, catering to agile teams needing quick iterations.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect typically has higher initial setup costs, justified by robust ROI through extensive features. Tyk's open-source options allow for lower upfront costs, appealing to smaller teams seeking cost efficiency.

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

IBM API Connect vs. Tyk

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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) (9th)

Tyk

Ranking in API Management

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tyk is 2.2%, up from 1.8% 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.

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MarkDoherty

Founding Director at Point Group

Fastest to get up and running and fewer idiosyncrasies than competitors

In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them. But as a product, it's very difficult to find any major faults.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"API Connect's most valuable feature is its ability to act as a gateway. It's very easy to configure security and everything else in it. You don't have to kill yourself implementing custom configurations."

"It is easy to use and stable."

"Since it runs on top of Datapower, all Datapower based custom policies can be utilized and exported to API connect but its not straightforward/simple process."

"The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness."

"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."

"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."

"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."

"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."

More IBM API Connect pros

"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."

"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."

"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."

"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."

"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."

"It is a good product for API management."

Cons

"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."

"The documentation needs to be a bit better."

"It is expensive within this class of products."

"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."

"The developer portal could be easier to customize."

"API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database."

"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."

"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."

More IBM API Connect cons

"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."

"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."

"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."

"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."

"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."

"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."

"It is quite an expensive product."

"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."

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

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

"The pricing is significantly high."

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

"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"There are different versions and plans available depending on the requirements, so there is flexibility in terms of the pricing."

"It had a free version, which suited many of our needs, but not all, but we were happy to go ahead with the licensed version as well, which is the paid version."

"We are using the open-source version of this product, so there are no licensing costs for its use."

"The price is low compared to other products of a similar type."

"The cost curve is far smoother, both in terms of volume and the number of calls it's running on, compared to most competitors. So it's a tad more expensive at the very low end, but the curve is nothing like Apigee or some of the others."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Insurance Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 Tyk?

The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tyk?

The pricing is actually quite competitive. In Azure environments, it gets beaten by Microsoft API Gateway, but on the other hand, it offers some features that Microsoft lacks. So it really comes do...

What needs improvement with Tyk?

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Comparisons

Compared 26% 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 7% of the time

OpenLegacy vs IBM API Connect

Compared 1% of the time

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Traefik Enterprise vs Tyk

Compared 14% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Tyk

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Tyk

Compared 11% of the time

Apigee vs Tyk

Compared 10% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY API Management vs Tyk

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

IBM API Connect

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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

Tyk is an open source API Gateway that is fast and scalable, an API management platform featuring an API gateway, analytics, developer portal and dashboard. Available in three flavours to best suit your architecture and governance. We offer full cloud or on-premises options, and the best of both worlds with our unique hybrid model. www.tyk.io

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

Trip Advisor, Juniper Networks, AT&T

IBM API Connect vs. Tyk