IBM DataPower Gateway vs Mule ESB comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.9. IBM holds a 5.8% mindshare in E, compared to Salesforce’s 20.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 29 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

1,099 Views
668 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 50 Mule ESB reviews

3,481 Views
2,265 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM DataPower Gateway and Mule ESB are competing in the integration solutions space, each offering unique strengths. Mule ESB appears to have an edge with superior features and flexibility, enhancing its value for the price.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway is known for its robust API management, security features, and integration capabilities, making it ideal for secure enterprise environments. Mule ESB stands out with its extensive connectivity options, API-led connectivity approach, and versatile Anypoint Platform, enhancing its ability to meet diverse integration needs.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could improve with a more user-friendly deployment process and reducing the need for specialized knowledge. Enhanced customization options would benefit users. Mule ESB might enhance its initial cost-effectiveness and streamline licensing options. Better centralized management tools could further simplify user operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower Gateway, with its structured deployment model, suits enterprises but requires specialized skills. IBM’s customer service is comprehensive. Mule ESB offers agile, cloud-based deployment solutions, allowing faster implementations. Its customer service excels in providing accessible resources and smoother experiences.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway offers competitive setup costs with significant ROI in secure, large-scale environments. Mule ESB may involve higher initial expenses but delivers notable long-term ROI, thanks to its flexibility and feature-rich platform.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB

June 2025

Download the complete report

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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 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (8th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)

Mule ESB

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 20.1%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi

Co-Founder at tenekit

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.

Read full review

PurbayanSaha

Technology Consultant at Ernst & Young

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."

"The product is stable...The product is scalable."

"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."

"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."

"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."

"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."

"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."

"It is a scalable solution."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"It's open source, and there are a lot of community resources. Mule ESB makes it easy to connect to other software applications."

"The most valuable feature is the Salesforce integration."

"I am impressed with the product's connectors and scalability."

"Once it is started, we don't see any problems on a day to day basis."

"The most beneficial features of Mule ESB are the control plane and runtime plane."

"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."

"We can use Java expressions anywhere in the flow."

"For complex cases, we employ the SSLi engine, whereas for simpler ones like healthcare or response data, such as EDI 270 or 271. We prefer to use an external XRT engine instead of handling it within the ESB for ease of management."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"It is a costly product."

"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."

"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."

"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."

"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."

"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."

"They should improve the solution's clustering features."

"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."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"From the product perspective, it was sometimes hard to manage the dependencies. When we had to add dependencies on a couple of different packages, it was sometimes confusing. It was hard to update them with Anypoint Studio, as well as with MuleSoft. There were challenges with that. So, that's one of the areas that could be improved."

"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."

"We would like the ability to use our own code. This would allow us to develop customizations with ease. Additionally, it would be nice to have more analytics or insights on the exchanged information between databases."

"The initial setup could be more straightforward."

"The stability could be improved."

"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."

"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."

"The price of Mule ESB could improve."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too 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."

"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."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."

"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."

"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."

"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."

"You will not get any support from Mule ESB's team for the tool's community edition...You can get support with the licensed version of Mule ESB."

"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 price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."

"The pricing must be improved."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...

See all answers

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 the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...

See all answers

What do you like most about Mule ESB?

The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 34% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Integration Bus vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 27% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 12% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Fuse vs Mule ESB

Compared 5% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

April 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

May 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

No data available

Overview

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“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. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

IBM

For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB

June 2025

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