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IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.0%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.0%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 20.4%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.
PurbayanSaha - PeerSpot reviewer
Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs
There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"The solution is robust."
"You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"The message queue connectors are the most valuable feature. They have built-in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP and Oracle Database."
"I use the integration of Kafka and the message flow, which is really good. It is also good for moving any file from one location to another. Using IBM Integration Bus in the data stage is pretty simple. You can see the preview and other things. The MQ server integrated with IBM Integration Bus is really great. I don't have to do a lot of configuration from that side. It is really good."
"It's easy to develop things, and it's easy to handle."
"IBM Integration Bus's best feature is integration."
"I recommend it for large enterprises but only for specific use cases. You need to have a relatively mature integration practice in your organization to leverage its capabilities fully."
"Web interface, REST API for viewing services, admin, stats, and deployment are premium features, which makes IIB stand among its competition."
"One of the most valuable features is how seamless and easy to use this solution is. This is a fantastic solution and a very measured product."
"Easy to understand documentation with a huge list of examples and tutorials."
"The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot."
"I'm not using ESB directly. It is the integration layer, so it's running under the hood. However, the conversion and transformation performance is excellent. Anypoint Enterprise Security is also solid."
"Most of our use cases are for Salesforce. So, the connectors for Salesforce have been really helpful. They've made development two times faster."
"The product is very stable."
"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."
"We can use Java expressions anywhere in the flow."
"I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier."
"The solution has a good graphical interface."
 

Cons

"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods."
"They need to come up with Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS). It should also have a feature for integrating with those applications that are on the cloud."
"This product uses the PVU (Processor Value Unit) license model from IBM, and it is something that should be improved."
"The next versions are moving toward container use. It would be a shame to make the product highly complex just to support one pattern of deployment. It is my hope that IBM continues to focus on practical functionality that is simple and cost-effective."
"They could integrate AI technologies with the product. Additionally, ongoing developments and enhancements in integration technologies could be beneficial."
"The solution is complex and there is a need for more resources and greatly improved quality."
"IBM Integration Bus could be easier to manage, but this is true of all vendors. It doesn't always do what it says on the box."
"I can't say that there is any improvement I’m looking for. I’m new and haven’t connected with all features. For all drawbacks that were in the old version, I think they have been solved. The scalability needs improvement."
"It's not easy to troubleshoot and we still can't make it work."
"One area that could be improved is the way that policies are propagated when APIs are moved from one environment to another. It's an issue, but when you develop and test the rest APIs in a lower environment and need to move them, there's a propagation process. This process moves certain aspects of the APIs, like the basic features. But when we move them, the policies don't always move with them. The policies should be able to move so we don't have to redo them manually. There are some APIs we use, but it's a bit tedious."
"We would like to have a built-in logging framework in which we can do auditing."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"Mule ESB is more into the latest REST APIs, not much into the SOAP web services. Developing is all about web services and not easy with Mule."
"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."
"Lacking some connectors that could be included."
"The Anypoint platform consumes a lot of memory, and it would be great for developers if it were more lightweight."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution requires a license and is very expensive here in India."
"IBM is expensive."
"I generally do not get involved in the licensing or pricing because I'm a hardcore technical guy, but I'm aware of the fact that IBM is highly expensive, so not everybody can afford it. All the products are licensed."
"Our licensing is based on a five-year contract, and as far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive. There are cheaper products in the marketplace."
"The price of the license could be cheaper."
"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
"I think the price is very high. If you use TIBCO BW, the license is for the CPU usage, then the IPS, and support. I also think the license for the product is a one-time expense."
"This product is cheaper than some offered by other vendors, although there is a problem because you have to pay for some third-party adapters."
"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
"Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."
"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
"Mule ESB is a costly solution. We pay approximately $80,000 annually for the system. The cost of the number of instances, annual subscription, and cloud hosting services are expensive."
"Regarding licensing and pricing, I find it somewhat flexible. They are more flexible with larger customers compared to small and medium ones, as their licensing model depends on ports and other factors. Large customers benefit from more flexibility in implementation and renewal compared to smaller ones."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for s...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing cod...
Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using Mu...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was t...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like...
What do you like most about Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mule ESB?
Pricing is higher compared to other solutions, and the licensing costs are high.
What needs improvement with Mule ESB?
In India, particularly in the banking sector, clients do not prefer cloud solutions due to regulatory and compliance ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.