IBM DataPower Gateway vs Red Hat Fuse comparison

IBM and Red Hat are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5, while Red Hat is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 6.3% mindshare in E, compared to Red Hat’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 30 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,657 Views
905 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Red Hat Fuse

Read 24 Red Hat Fuse reviews

1,568 Views
1,537 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Red Hat Fuse

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM DataPower Gateway and Red Hat Fuse are competing products in the application integration and data management category. IBM DataPower Gateway has the upper hand in security and gateway functionalities, while Red Hat Fuse excels in integration capabilities and flexibility.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway's most valuable features include advanced security, API management, and efficient service virtualization. Red Hat Fuse is recognized for its open-source environment, seamless integration, and flexibility, supporting multiple programming languages and cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could improve by streamlining its deployment process, reducing complexity, and enhancing support for non-IBM environments. Red Hat Fuse would benefit from enhancing its user interface, improving detailed documentation, and strengthening security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Fuse offers a simpler deployment process due to its modular architecture and cloud accessibility, making it adaptable in hybrid scenarios. IBM DataPower Gateway, with more complex deployment, offers extensive configuration options and robust customer service.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway has higher initial setup costs due to its enterprise-level security features, delivering significant ROI for secure data handling. Red Hat Fuse provides a cost-effective solution with lower upfront costs, offering high flexibility and scalability for potentially higher ROI in diverse integration environments.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Red Hat Fuse Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Red Hat Fuse

September 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)

6th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Red Hat Fuse

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.3%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Fuse is 7.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Fuse	7.1%
IBM DataPower Gateway	6.3%
Other	86.6%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

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.

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Kaushal Kedia

Technical Architect at Accenture

Offers a single console for all applications and supports Camel routing

Containerization is one key area where the product can improve, but it probably has already improved in JBOS integration. On a few occasions, our company's production team faced an issue with Red Hat Fuse; the screen displayed that the containers had gone down while, in reality, they were running in the background. The user interface and the back-end code were not in sync in the aforementioned situation, which our organization frequently faced while using Red Hat Fuse. But at our company, we were using an older version of Red Hat Fuse in which we faced the issues. From the JBOS end, the product was very frequently changed from Red Hat, and it was difficult for our clients to keep investing money in every upgrade. Six or seven years back, Red Hat Fuse was one of the best solutions.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."

"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."

"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."

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

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

"What I like most is the stability."

"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."

"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"The process workflow, where we can orchestrate and design the application by defining different routes, is really useful."

"The installation is quite okay. We don't really change much in the configuration. Most of the time, most of the settings remain with the default and we are able to handle our needs using the default setting."

"Because we have been doing Red Hat Fuse projects for three years, and over time we have matured, we can employ similar use cases and make use of accelerators or templates. It gives us an edge when we deliver these services or APIs quickly."

"The solution is stable. We have gone for months or years without any issue. There are no memory restarts, so from my point of view, it's very stable."

"The initial setup process is quite straightforward."

"It's very lightweight. There's no need for any specialized tools in order to deploy any service for Red Hat Fuse."

"The most valuable feature is that it's the same as Apache Camel."

"What I like about Red Hat Fuse is that it's a well-established integration software. I find all aspects of the tool positive."

More Red Hat Fuse pros

Cons

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

"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."

"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."

"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."

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

"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."

"Its support services could be better."

"They should add features to manage API integrations."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"What could be improved in Red Hat Fuse is the deployment process because it's still very heavy. It's containerized, but now with Spring Boot and other microservices-related containers, deployment is still very heavy. Red Hat Fuse still has room for improvement in terms of becoming more containerized and more oriented."

"As its learning curve is quite steep, developer dependency will always be there in the case of a Red Hat Fuse development. This should be improved for developers. There should be some built-in connectors so the grind of the developer can be reduced."

"While it's a good platform, the pricing is a bit high."

"Currently, the main point of concern for us is how flexible it is to cater to different requirements. It should be more flexible."

"I don't know the product last versions. I know they are migrating a microservices concepts. We still didn't get there... but we are in the process."

"In the next release, I'd like more stability and more security overall."

"Red Hat Fuse doesn't have a lot of administrative control like other applications."

"The web tools need to be updated."

More Red Hat Fuse cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The product is expensive."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."

"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."

"It's expensive when you compare it with others."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

"We are paying around $24 million across five years."

"The solution doesn't have independent licensing."

"You need to pay for the license. It's not free."

"Red Hat Fuse is an expensive tool, though I cannot answer how much it costs as that's confidential."

"We use the standard license, but you need the container platform in order to run it."

"Pricing has been something that we have been working with Red Hat on, year over year. We have preferred pricing with the university because we are involved in education and research."

"In terms of pricing, Red Hat Fuse is a bit expensive because nowadays, if I'm just comparing it with OpenShift with Kubernetes, so Kubernetes and OpenShift, are similar, and Kubernetes is open source, so Red Hat Fuse is quite expensive in terms of support, but Red Hat Fuse provides value for money because it provides good support. If you want to get something, you need to pay for it."

More Red Hat Fuse pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

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	3
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	12

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

What needs improvement with Red Hat Fuse?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Fuse?

Our company used Red Hat Fuse to integrate layers of numerous applications. The solution has also been used in our organization for orchestration purposes of multiple microservices over the years. ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Fuse?

I would rate Red Hat Fuse as eight out of ten. When the solution was being used in our organization, the JBoss or Red Hat support was great. The solution was highly stable, robust, and scalable, an...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 37% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 10% 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

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 30% of the time

Mule ESB vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 18% of the time

JBoss ESB vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 15% of the time

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 11% of the time

More Red Hat Fuse Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Fuse

August 2025

Download Red Hat Fuse product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

Fuse ESB, FuseSource

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

Red Hat JBoss Fuse is a lightweight, flexible integration platform that enables rapid integration across the extended enterprise - on-premise or in the cloud. JBoss Fuse includes modular integration capabilities, an enterprise service bus (ESB), to unlock information.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

Avianca, American Product Distributors (APD), Kings College Hospital, AMD, CenturyLink, AECOM, E*TRADE

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Red Hat Fuse

September 2025

Free Report: IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Red Hat Fuse

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