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: April 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

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)

Tyk

Ranking in API Management

19th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.4%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tyk is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan

Associate Manager at Baariz

Quite flexible and provides excellent performance for API gateway

The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support, which can be considered quite expensive. In terms of new functionality, I think the analytics can be improved in V10. The analytics feature was better in the older version, 2.18. But in V10, it's not as flexible. When exporting analytics as KSP or JSON, it's not well formatted. They can work on enhancing the analytics part. Additionally, they can focus on reducing the hardware cost.

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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

"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."

"IBM API Connect is a good product, and their technical support is excellent."

"Its speed and performance are valuable."

"This is a very easy to use solution."

"Overall, I rate it nine out of ten."

"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."

"It is easy to use and stable."

"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 ."

More IBM API Connect pros

"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."

"It is a good product for API management."

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

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

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

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

Cons

"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."

"The monetization of the API could be improved. The pricing for the consumer is also very important to improve this solution."

"The design time setup has a lot of customizable fields, but we need certain standard fields to be added, such as what all of the consuming systems are. This needs to be very clearly articulated during the design time."

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

"We ran it on top of the Kubernetes cluster, so it wasn't a standalone service. In the worst-case scenario, API Connect couldn't stay online if all the containers went down. We had to restart all the services. We shut down all the containers automatically one by one."

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

"Possible improvement is mainly around having more of the cloud oriented architecture bringing stability in adding new capabilities around security."

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

More IBM API Connect cons

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

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

"It is quite an expensive product."

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

"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

23%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

15%

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

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?

Price depends on many factors like size of the deal, competitive factors, timing, customer profile or where the pricing for API Calls is very competitive comparing to any of the leader players.

What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?

The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side. Scalability is an issue with IBM API Connect, making it an area where improvements are required.

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

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Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 20% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 7% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs IBM API Connect

Compared 1% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 4% 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