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IBM App Connect vs SAP Replication Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 App Connect
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (13th)
SAP Replication Server
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (19th), Data Integration (32nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Emirhan Guven - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms data efficiently and navigates licensing challenges with ease
The transition between version 12 and version 13 presents some challenges. While version 12 had approximately 10 features, version 13 includes around 200 features with cloud platform compatibility. The learning curve for developers moving from version 12 to 13 could be smoother. When using new components, better context explanations would be beneficial. In version 13, accessing new features requires connecting through a web browser, which can be challenging to understand. The explanation of new features could be more user-friendly.
Imran  Rafi - PeerSpot reviewer
Foolproof stability and robust system
SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience. One of its notable features is real-time replication, which ensures that data changes are replicated immediately. This is particularly advantageous when we need to execute full processes promptly.

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 beneficial features is the ability to handle multiple communication technologies, like integrating Kafka flows, which is helpful as other teams heavily use it. Regarding error handling, I initially wrote most of the handling myself. While built-in features for error handling are built-in, it largely depends on the developer. We use a custom solution that catches all exceptions, logs them in a database, and replays them as needed. It has been effective for us for over twenty years."
"App Connect's best feature is that it can be deployed in a container."
"It can handle API conversions with mapping and transformation rules, simplifying the development process."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendliness of the application."
"It's a powerful application for collaboration. It has many features for customization and integration."
"Provides good security features."
"Very scalable, flexible, and user-friendly."
"I recommend IBM App Connect Enterprise to everyone."
"We can customize any workflow and we also like the business domain modeling that can be done."
"SAP is renovating different things. We are using external tools to connect as of now. It is going well, and now the new generation integration platforms are going to be pretty easy."
"It's pretty good at handling replication, even under high load. It also provides cross-database replication, for example, from Sybase to Oracle."
"It speeds up the performance in terms of how fast you are able to access the data, look at it, get it reported to you, and send it to somebody. It also reduces the amount of storage."
"SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience."
 

Cons

"More connectors could be available for the product as some of the third-party software doesn't have default connectors."
"IBM App Connect is scalable. From the administration side, they need to improve the RBAC model, as well as the clustering of this product. It will be good if we can start up the cluster, via IBM Connect Console. Some other products like MuleSoft, are providing this type of administration. MuleSoft is easy to use and user friendly."
"Plugins for the repositories are difficult to find."
"Updates are constantly delayed."
"I've been using IBM App Connect for about twenty-five years, and while I like it, there are some areas for improvement. The trace policy is ridiculous, and the biggest issue is the cost—it's expensive. People would use it much more if the price point weren't so high."
"The product should improve its support."
"In the next release, I would like to get some quality connectors."
"The user interface of IBM App Connect can be a little bit more user-friendly, I would say because the first-time developer is onboarded while using IBM App Connect, he or she may get a little intimidated or daunted looking at all the options available or the pipelines, et cetera."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing and faster support."
"If someone wants to replicate their data from Sybase to a newer technology for data warehousing or other purposes, it would be better if they supported those."
"The private solution is expensive. If you're in a situation where you're paying IBM or AWS or somebody just to host you specifically, you're paying people to run it and you're taking care of all the upgrades."
"I would like to see it become mobile-friendly."
"Improvement is a never ending story, and HANA is doing some improvements. We are able to adopt that, and we have to do it by integration with HANA. They are very major changes that we need to see."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"It's a very expensive solution."
"You can pick one of the hosted cloud services as opposed to owning it and doing it yourself. Your cost of ownership on the hardware, the data storage, and the maintenance all go down. It depends on what service you use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
Configuration time varies by implementation. For insurance companies with simple JDBC connections, the process is straightforward. However, companies requiring multiple configurations for ODBC, JDB...
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
I am a developer specializing in IBM App Connect. We have a customer interested in comparing ESB tools, such as webMethods, which was previously owned by Software AG company before IBM acquired the...
What needs improvement with SAP Replication Server?
SAP can provide better support for cross-database replication to newer technologies. The product supports Oracle, but I am not aware of what other technologies it supports. If someone wants to repl...
What is your primary use case for SAP Replication Server?
It's basically to transfer data from one server to another. It's used for this purpose.
 

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron
Sybase Replication Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. SAP Replication Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,484 professionals have used our research since 2012.