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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Microsoft System Center 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
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd), API Management (12th)
Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.6%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 1.0%, up from 0.6% 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.
Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes user management and application management easy for users
Speaking about the impact of the automation feature that impacted our company's operational efficiency, I can say that the complete tool works on automation. You just have to configure it, and it works, especially in areas like auto-patching updates. I suggest that others can definitely go ahead with Microsoft System Center, especially beginners who choose it, can get hands-on experience with it, and acquire a good understanding of how things work. In terms of the value and benefits derived from the use of the solution, I can say that my company's operations have been made simpler because of the product, especially in areas like user management and application management where we have been benefited a lot. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"Good for managing and administering the infrastructure."
"Managment Packs for Microsoft-specific products, help us implement the best practices for each product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it helps us manage our company's application pool, license pool, application update pool, and OS updates."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."
"I like the automated features of it that let you schedule those updates and the ability of the product to focus on the specific updates, specific platforms, and products that we're interested in keeping up to date."
"The deployment and asset management features are the most valuable. These are the product's main features."
"System Center helps to create the basis for ITIL alignment."
"The tool has many valuable features, including license tracking, software deployment, and installation deployment. However, we primarily use it for Windows updates and deployment for Windows servers and desktops. It's a complex product but very well-managed. If you use all the features, they will be valuable to your organization. It allows you to deploy desktops, manage patches, and track various features."
 

Cons

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"Implementation and integration in the case of multi-tenant environments needs improvement."
"They should have some customized solutions or internal development, then maybe it could be easier to use different solutions or some self-developed solution."
"Less server consumption would help, as would better, more flexible reports."
"We have some bugs but it's stable. It doesn't break every day. It works. Like other applications, it has a lot of bugs but they're manageable."
"Something super important that we need is this integration via Intune Configuration Manager."
"For me, the tool's UI seems to be too old."
"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."
"The multi-tenancy support needs to be improved. We need to have the ability to manage several different environments from one central point of administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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 licensing cost is very expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"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."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."
"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."
"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."
"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."
"We maximized our license investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

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...
What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
Microsoft System Center should be easier to manage. However, it is complex to deploy, so people hesitate to use it. Though it has many features, such as licensing, asset tracking, and software depl...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
MS System Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Microsoft System Center and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.