IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle SOA Suite comparison

IBM and Oracle are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while Oracle is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.0. IBM holds a 4.1% mindshare in AIS, compared to Oracle’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 30 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,383 Views
592 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Oracle SOA Suite

Read 66 Oracle SOA Suite reviews

1,419 Views
766 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Oracle SOA Suite

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Oracle SOA Suite and IBM DataPower Gateway compete in enterprise-level integration and service management solutions. Oracle shows strength in diverse integration capabilities, while IBM demonstrates superiority in security and direct integration features.

Features: Oracle SOA Suite offers a comprehensive toolkit for enterprise integration, with customizable adapters and broad integration with platforms like SAP and Salesforce. It supports flexible integration patterns and includes Oracle Service Bus for service virtualization. IBM DataPower Gateway provides robust security features, high availability, and minimal development for service integration, making it easy to manage and deploy with hybrid deployment options.

Room for Improvement: Oracle SOA Suite is noted for being resource-intensive, with reported slowness and a need for optimized support, particularly in stability and administration complexity. It requires improvements in integration flexibility as well. IBM DataPower Gateway faces challenges with high costs and complexity in managing connections, with users desiring better affordability and ease of use to match its strong performance in security.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle SOA Suite is focused on on-premises deployment with limited flexibility, whereas IBM DataPower Gateway offers hybrid deployment options including cloud. Both have mixed reviews in customer service, with Oracle criticized for slow response times, and IBM requiring familiarity with their processes for optimal support experience.

Pricing and ROI: Both solutions are considered expensive, with Oracle's pricing being more favorable when bundled with other Oracle products but still costly for smaller businesses. IBM's appliance model can be prohibitive for smaller workloads, pushing some clients to seek alternatives. Both promise long-term benefits despite initial cost and complexity potentially delaying ROI, with strategic planning recommended to optimize investment.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite

September 2025

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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 Application Infrastructure

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)

Oracle SOA Suite

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

SOA Governance (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.1%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SOA Suite is 3.6%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle SOA Suite	3.6%
IBM DataPower Gateway	4.1%
Other	92.3%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant

Manager at CSB Bank Ltd

Security features excel but development limitations emerge

We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

Read full review

Debjit Ghosh

Manager at Cognizant

Has enabled complex data flow management but faces limitations with modern integration needs

There are areas of Oracle SOA Suite I would like to see improved or enhanced in the future, particularly regarding its adapter capabilities. The popularity of Oracle Integration Cloud nowadays arises from its larger set of adapter capabilities, including numerous application adapters. In contrast, Oracle SOA Suite provides a limited number of adapters. I would like to see more REST-based features added to Oracle SOA Suite, currently lacking, along with an enhancement of file size or payload capability, as the existing limitation is a 10 MB payload size. Additionally, Oracle SOA Suite licensing cost tends to be higher, adhering to a fixed pricing model rather than a pay-per-use basis, which might not be suitable for smaller organizations.

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

"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."

"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The solution is robust."

"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."

"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."

"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:"

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"The integration with various products."

"The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful."

"The ability to stand up a highly available SOA Suite, which has full DR capabilities, in a remote center and synchronize the databases using Data Guard."

"The most valuable feature of Oracle SOA Suite is all the platform's capabilities."

"Provides connectivity between discrete systems and has availability."

"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 product allows you to visualize how a company is working currently by providing rich possibilities for analysis such as the audit trails and therefore shows where improvements might be valuable."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the option to design, and the development can happen at the same time."

More Oracle SOA Suite pros

Cons

"Its support services could be better."

"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."

"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."

"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."

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

"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."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"SOA"

"The deployment could be made easier by including add-ons like Hudson and Maven."

"One area that could be better is the human task feature. It could be improved to provide more functionality and customization options because it has limited options available."

"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."

"An important area that can be improved is the product's data monitoring. When we use the solution for interfacing or end-to-end data monitoring, we want to know exactly where the data is going and exactly where it is failing, or where there is an issue."

"Oracle SOA Suite licensing cost tends to be higher, adhering to a fixed pricing model rather than a pay-per-use basis, which might not be suitable for smaller organizations."

"The solutions can improve the communication or translations between formats, such as JSON and XML. The JSON REST API could improve."

"They supply lots of documentation but finding what we need is challenging at times."

More Oracle SOA Suite cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."

"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 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."

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

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."

"The product is moderately priced."

"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."

"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."

"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."

"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."

"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	41

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?

This product is definitely expensive because if any issue occurs in the live environment or production environment, and our organization faces some issue with the IBM DataPower Gateway, then the IB...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

I have significant experience with the IBM DataPower Gateway. As a security product, it is very good. However, from the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT...

See all answers

What do you like most about Oracle SOA Suite?

The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle SOA Suite?

The setup cost of Oracle SOA Suite is relatively high since various components, including database licenses, WebLogic licenses, VM costs, and SOA licenses based on enterprise and Oracle negotiation...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 35% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

WebLogic Suite vs Oracle SOA Suite

Compared 33% of the time

MID Innovator vs Oracle SOA Suite

Compared 14% of the time

Aurea CX Messenger vs Oracle SOA Suite

Compared 13% of the time

TIBCO ActiveMatrix vs Oracle SOA Suite

Compared 12% of the time

Mule ESB vs Oracle SOA Suite

Compared 8% of the time

More Oracle SOA Suite Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

October 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle SOA Suite

October 2025

Download Oracle SOA Suite product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

SOA Suite

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

Oracle SOA Suite is a comprehensive, standards-based software suite to build, deploy and manage integration following the concepts of service-oriented architecture (SOA). The components of the suite benefit from consistent tooling, a single deployment and management model, end-to-end security and unified metadata management. Oracle SOA Suite helps businesses lower costs by allowing maximum re-use of existing IT investments and assets, regardless of the environment (OS, application server, etc.) they run in, or the technology they were built upon. Its easy-to-use, re-use focused, unified application development tooling and end-to-end lifecycle management support further reduces development and maintenance cost and complexity.

For more information on Oracle SOA Suite, visit Oracle.com

Oracle

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite

September 2025

Free Report: IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite

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