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IBM App Connect vs TIBCO BusinessWorks 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM App Connect enhances efficiency and ROI with centralized integrations, requiring expertise for long-term success across various sectors.
Sentiment score
7.2
TIBCO BusinessWorks is valued for its flexibility and reliability, seen as a worthwhile investment despite ROI calculation challenges.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
IBM App Connect support is responsive and competent, but inconsistencies and delays exist, especially in non-urgent and local support.
Sentiment score
6.2
TIBCO BusinessWorks customer service is generally efficient but varies by region, with some users experiencing delays and expertise issues.
When opening a ticket with the global team, problems are resolved promptly and effectively.
The technical support from IBM is good.
The technical support from TIBCO BusinessWorks is very good.
Customer service is very helpful.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM App Connect is praised for scalability in cloud and container environments, with suggestions for improved administration features.
Sentiment score
6.6
TIBCO BusinessWorks is seen as scalable, but cost, licensing, infrastructure, and specific limitations impact its effectiveness.
IBM App Connect demonstrates good scalability.
I would rate the scalability of IBM App Connect as nine out of ten.
It is not like AWS where I can add memory or more servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM App Connect is stable, with high reliability, though occasional issues arise from environment, configuration, or resource management.
Sentiment score
7.4
TIBCO BusinessWorks is stable with minimal downtime, but newer versions face upgrade issues; version 5.14 is preferred.
IBM App Connect occasionally crashes for various reasons, requiring problem-solving intervention.
It is stable, however, every now and then, it just ends.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM App Connect users seek improved logging, interface enhancements, better community support, and simpler, more cost-effective version transitions.
TIBCO BusinessWorks needs cloud improvements, better integration, refined pricing, enhanced monitoring, and easier external tool integration for users.
I find it particularly good for on-premises and now cloud use.
Version 13 includes around 200 features with cloud platform compatibility.
The learning curve takes time compared to webMethods.
They should ensure that what was working in the previous version must also work in the new version of BW six.
Performance and latency could be enhanced.
 

Setup Cost

IBM App Connect's annual pricing varies by transactions and partnership, with complexities and flexibility in setup and licensing.
TIBCO BusinessWorks is costly, favoring larger enterprises, but price adjustments make it more accessible starting at €2000.
For insurance companies with simple JDBC connections, the process is straightforward.
The current licensing cost for the product involves our resource sourcing team for negotiations.
Pricing is for an enterprise application, so the company pays for it with a company license.
 

Valuable Features

IBM App Connect excels with robust integration, user-friendly design, scalability, and flexibility for seamless, secure, and complex integrations.
TIBCO BusinessWorks is renowned for its user-friendly GUI, scalability, robust integration, and real-time processing capabilities.
The features I find most valuable are message routing, message transformation, and protocol translation.
File operations are simple to execute, and converting between XML to JSON formats is effortless with IBM App Connect.
When I have an architecture designed to plug in the service itself with BW, it makes things much easier.
It's a great software application for the middleware use cases to connect the front channels to the back ends in a secure and safer way.
 

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)
TIBCO BusinessWorks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (18th)
 

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.
AftabAlam - PeerSpot reviewer
User benefits from reliable support and seamless orchestration capabilities
The best features of TIBCO BusinessWorks compared to other products are that it is a roadmap product. The company has proper support. We have similar products in the market, including open source options, but they don't have any support beyond community feedback. TIBCO BusinessWorks is a standard product widely used by many companies. It is more stable, has future releases, and is compliant with new technologies. The significant advantage is that it is a standardized product with a proper, well-planned roadmap, support, and R&D. The positive impact I have experienced from installing TIBCO BusinessWorks is that it is reliable and has better support. It is easy to use and saves overall support costs. The real-time data exchange capability of TIBCO BusinessWorks has helped mission-critical systems because the uptime is superb. We have implemented it in a Kubernetes cluster with auto-scaling. If any systems go down, we have pods that automatically restart and spawn new pods which start taking the load. Earlier deployments used to be on VMs where infrastructure was limited, making scaling difficult. With Kubernetes, you can provision in advance and scale up or down based on requirements. The graphical user interface of TIBCO BusinessWorks is very easy to use. You can configure all components efficiently. Previously, configuration required opening XML files, which wasn't easy to understand without complete specifications knowledge. The graphical interface makes it easy to understand what needs to be configured and is straightforward to use.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise23
 

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...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO BusinessWorks?
Pricing is for an enterprise application, so the company pays for it with a company license. Everything comes packaged with the license.
What needs improvement with TIBCO BusinessWorks?
The creation of XSDs should be much simpler. They should ensure that what was working in the previous version must also work in the new version of BW six.
 

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Euler Hermes, QSuper, Scandinavian Airlines
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. TIBCO BusinessWorks and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.