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IBM Cloud Pak for Integration vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Cloud Pak for Integration
Ranking in API Management
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (20th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (7th), Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Integration is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.6%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway3.6%
IBM Cloud Pak for Integration1.0%
Other95.4%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Igor Khalitov - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner/Full Stack Software Engineer at Maraphonic, Inc.
Manages APIs and integrates microservices with redirection feature
IBM Cloud Pak for Integration includes monitoring capabilities to track the performance and health of your integrations. You can quickly roll back to a previous version if an issue arises. Additionally, it supports incremental deployments, allowing you to shift traffic to a new version of an API gradually. For example, you can start by directing 10% of traffic to the new version while the rest continue using the legacy version. If everything works as expected, you can gradually increase the traffic to the new version over time. IBM Cloud Pak for Integration has a client base that includes numerous organizations using AI and machine learning technologies. We leverage an open-source machine learning framework and integrate it with Kafka to help create and manage various products and data retrieval processes. For companies with private data, the framework first retrieves relevant data from a GitHub database, which is then combined with the final request before being sent to a language model like GPT. This ensures that the language model uses your specific data to generate responses. Kafka plays a key role by streaming real-time data from file systems and databases like Oracle and Microsoft SQL. This data is published to Kafka topics, then vectorized and used with artificial intelligence to enhance the overall process. It's like an old-fashioned approach. The best way is to redesign it with products such as Kafka. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
AkshaySawant - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
Security features excel but development limitations emerge
We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most preferable aspect would be the elimination of the command, which was a significant improvement. In the past, it was a challenge, but now we can proceed smoothly with the implementation of our policies and everything is managed through JCP. It's still among the positive aspects, and it's a valuable feature."
"Redirection is a key feature. It helps in managing multiple microservices by centralizing control and access."
"In general, the solution works very, very well."
"The most valuable aspect of the Cloud Pak, in general, is the flexibility that you have to use the product."
"It is a stable solution."
"Cloud Pak for Integration is definitely scalable. That is the most important criteria."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"The performance is good, it's been very stable, and the product is easy to integrate."
"The solution is robust, and we use the appliance version, which comes with good security features and troubleshooting tools, so we are happy with IBM DataPower."
"For me, its most valuable features include: the fact that it's high-speed, its ability to be remotely administered via an API, the fact that it can deal with multiple protocols, and it's very quick to make changes to the setup."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"IBM is a huge organization in comparison to most of the competition, it has massive development and offers very high-quality products."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
 

Cons

"The pricing can be improved."
"Enterprise bots are needed to balance products like Kafka and Confluent."
"What needs to be improved is the restriction that they have on the product."
"Setting up Cloud Pak for Integration is relatively complex. It's not as easy because it has not yet been fully integrated. You still have some products that are still not containerized, so you still have to run them on a dedicated VM."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"Its queuing and messaging features need improvement."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"Its support services could be better."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive, especially in the development test and UAT environment, where we can use the virtual version of the product."
"From the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT language. It does not support multiple languages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution's pricing model is very flexible."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Integration?
Enterprise bots are needed to balance products like Kafka and Confluent.
What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Pak for Integration?
It manages APIs and integrates microservices at the enterprise level. It offers a range of capabilities for handling APIs, microservices, and various integration needs. The platform supports thousa...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Cloud Pak for Integration?
IBM Cloud Pak for Integration includes monitoring capabilities to track the performance and health of your integrations. You can quickly roll back to a previous version if an issue arises. Addition...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I don't know if the current licensing cost of IBM DataPower Gateway is high, but I think it's acceptable. I don't have any complaints about it.
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
I noticed that the Gateway Script libraries could be improved, as they are not covering everything I need.
What is your primary use case for IBM DataPower Gateway?
The primary purposes for which IBM DataPower Gateway is used include security purposes, and sometimes you need to put some configurations and mapping into the process.
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CVS Health Corporation
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Integration vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.