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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle SOA Suite 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
9th
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)
Oracle SOA Suite
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.5%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SOA Suite is 3.8%, down from 4.4% 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.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to work with."
"The solution is stable."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"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:"
"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"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."
"It performs better in real-time transactions."
"Valuable features include connectors and BAM."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle SOA Suite is all the platform's capabilities."
"This is one of the critical products for my company and we use it extensively. We currently use each and every feature of Oracle SOA."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the option to design, and the development can happen at the same time."
"The product provides transparency in finances."
 

Cons

"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."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"The deployment could be made easier by including add-ons like Hudson and Maven."
"Other solutions might be better componets such as Salesforce."
"I want to see easier integration connections with other cloud-based tools."
"Decrease the number of internal resources which the product uses."
"Another area of improvement is performance. Because with multiple solutions connecting to the SOA platform, the performance of the SOA platform can be affected in time. So, that could be one area that could be improved with the SOA."
"The interface is too complicated. Making modifications still requires too much technical knowledge."
"SOA"
"Various parts of SOA, BPEL, and so on, each have their own consoles which need to be accessed individually with different logins. It would be better from an admin perspective if all the consoles were accessible via a single login."
 

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."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"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's expensive when you compare it with others."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"The product is moderately priced."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
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 – 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 do you like most about Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
SOA Suite
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.