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IBM API Connect vs Workato comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
IBM API Connect enhances profitability and efficiency by reducing development time, improving security, and enabling seamless system integration.
Sentiment score
7.9
Workato simplifies app integration, boosting productivity and cost savings, with visible results often seen within a week.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
By replacing multiple legacy systems and teams with a single automated platform, organizations see significant cost savings and improved business operations.
In my experience, we have seen a return on investment, with results visible within a week.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM API Connect support is proactive and expert but variable in speed, with regional availability challenges noted by users.
Sentiment score
7.8
Workato's customer service earns praise for responsiveness, real-time support, and community engagement, despite limited availability and product challenges.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
Whenever we faced issues with data volume, the support team helped us by suggesting solutions like breaking the data into chunks.
I reach out to the professional services team or customer success team for technical support, and they provide immediate responses.
Workato's support is robust, featuring first and second-level support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM API Connect offers excellent scalability through on-premise and cloud solutions, supporting enterprise-level operations and customization features.
Sentiment score
6.9
Workato offers scalable and elastic operations, supporting multi-region use but may face issues with higher data volumes.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
There are scalability limitations with Workato.
Allows dynamic connection switching at runtime.
Even when clients overutilize the product, Workato allows them to continue without interruption, charging accordingly rather than limiting usage.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect is generally stable and reliable, especially in government and banking, despite occasional upgrade issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Workato is highly rated for stability and reliability, though occasional high-load issues require extra maintenance efforts.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
Once deployed, solutions do not break, making it more reliable than other solutions like Microsoft Power Automate that often disconnect.
During the initial data loads with large volumes, Workato was unable to handle the data effectively, which indicates stability issues under high loads.
To handle more than 50,000 records, I use scripting actions like Python or JavaScript to process large data in chunks.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
Workato needs improvements in collaboration, scalability, API management, licensing clarity, security, and more community recipes and connectors.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
Workato struggles with scalability when handling high volumes of data, such as terabytes, requiring chunking for initial data loads.
One area for improvement is the CI/CD pipeline, which lacks a version control system similar to GitHub for easier deployment.
Currently, there's no way to set breakpoints to stop the process and debug an error as you can in other tools like webMethods.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
Workato offers competitive enterprise pricing, benefiting users with bundled connectors and flexible, consumption-based models without hidden fees.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
While the upfront cost is high due to task-based pricing, the cost is relatively low in terms of development because Workato provides necessary connectors for integration use cases.
Compared to other iPaaS solutions like Boomi, Workato’s pricing model charges per connection step, which increases the cost.
Workato's pay-as-you-use model is competitive when compared with other iPaaS providers, making it cost-effective for organizations looking to integrate multiple functionalities under one platform.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
Workato simplifies app integration with drag-and-drop UI, enabling efficient automation for non-technical users across industries.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
It allows app-to-app and real-time integrations, which significantly enhance process efficiency.
It comes with pre-built connectors, eliminating the need to write APIs.
The platform's ease of use for connecting to different integrations, like Salesforce and NetSuite, is very beneficial because development isn't necessary, and everything is readily available.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
API Management (5th)
Workato
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 2.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workato is 4.3%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rohit Sircar - PeerSpot reviewer
Great automation and strong workflows useful for integration
The initial setup is quite straightforward. When connecting Workato with your on-premises system, you have to install the Workato agent on your network. It was not complex but a long process to configure and settle. Workato has not gone live for us yet, so only the developers are currently using it. But in terms of users, we will have close to 250 and maybe 30 additional direct users. We are seeing a lot of different use cases where we can add new recipes because we started small, and there are many different areas where we can implement Workato for automation.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
31%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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?
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 Workato?
Workato is low code, intuitive, and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Workato?
One area for improvement is the CI/CD pipeline, which lacks a version control system similar to GitHub ( /products/github-reviews ) for easier deployment. Though it has a recipe life cycle manageme...
What is your primary use case for Workato?
I am using Workato ( /products/workato-reviews ) for integrating and automating solutions for finance, HR, and IT. Specific use cases include onboarding and offboarding for HR, handling invoices fo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Panera Bread, Berkshire Hathaway, Salesforce, Box, Splunk, ComScore, IBM, Complex Media, Microsoft, Home Depot, Cisco, News Corp, Braille Institute
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Workato and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.