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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Magic xpa Application Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (9th), Mobile Development Platforms (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Magic xpa Application Platform is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

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.
Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"If you have an API application in your organization that you want to make safe and secure, in addition to your existing WAF or load balancer, this product comes with all those capabilities:"
"What I like most is the stability."
"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"The best feature of Magic is the development time. The time it takes to develop something is incredibly fast if you compare Magic with, for example, Java."
"Magic’s Database Gateway allows the logic of the program to be isolated from the underlying database. This provides the flexibility not only to move existing programs to different database environments without the need to change the logic in the program but also allows the programmer access to different databases without the need to know how to "talk" to them."
"The speed of development is the quickest for any tool on the market."
"xpa gives us a fast development speed."
"The ability to use the same development environment for both Windows and Android applications. Magic xpa also supports iOS applications."
"Magic is rapid, it's a tool which we use to develop, change and maintain our programs. xpa has a lot more features onboard and it gives us the opportunity to do such things so that we can easily adapt and maintain our programs. It gives certain benefits to stay with our customers and the market."
"Speed of development and database connectivity (MS SQL, Oracle, DB2, Btrieve/Pervasive PSQL, ODBC, MySql, and SQLite)."
"What I found most valuable in the Magic xpa Application Platform is that it has a client-server and web browser technology that's perfect for company users."
 

Cons

"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"It is a costly product."
"They want to be one toolbox for everything, but primarily, we are using xpa to develop desktop applications, and in that area they're lacking functionalities, flexibility, and modern stuff."
"When you have several tasks, you open a screen in a task in developing mode, and you don't see the parent screens. Debugging lacks the effects to solve problems. You have to do it first in a kind of studio. Then you have to be sure that you can do it in Magic because there is almost nothing to debug it. It's practically impossible to debug. You have to be sure before you put your snippets."
"The configuration of the xpa RIA mobile environment is complex and a discouragement to new developers. Also, Magic's documentation can be less than complete at times which leads to frustration for new developers. (I encourage new Magic developers to join the Magic Users Group)."
"There is room for improvement in Magic's marketing and licensing. I would like to see more integration of web functionality."
"I would like to see a spell checker included with optional language support. Currently, this has to be purchased from a third-party."
"Throughout my career, I've encountered difficulties when integrating new technologies with Magic xpa Application Platform. In particular, when attempting to incorporate features from other development languages into earlier versions of the solution called uniPaaS. I struggled to integrate .NET components due to the limited options available. This made the process more challenging and complicated. I find it challenging to create a more user-friendly experience for users who may be comparing the system to other systems they have used outside or within the company on different platforms."
"Magic has a tradition, when it adds new technologies/features to the Magic development tool, to provide either no documentation or documentation that does not provide an organized approach for bringing this new technology/feature to experienced Magic programmers."
"The user interface could be improved to be more friendly for developers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"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."
"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"The licensing is too costly."
"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
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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
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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 – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
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 smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
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 code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
uniPaaS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Magic xpa Application Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.