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IBM DataPower Gateway vs SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal 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)
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Po...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal is 1.5%, up from 1.3% 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.
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
The UI makes the setup easy to do from anywhere
Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations. SAP needs to come up with a standardized version of NetWeaver. The solution is good on the internal side, but not so much from the client perspective when they view it.

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."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is stable."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"Workflow functionality and internal portal capabilities are the most important features."
"They integrated it with the SAP router."
"Internal workflow approval around ESS and MSS leave days, capex approval as well as internal communication to the business have improved the way my organization functions."
"From the use of this solution, we have been able to establish better processes and have greater management of our company."
 

Cons

"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"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 user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"Due to our business, some setups were very complex."
"We encountered stability issues, especially on external functionality around its RFP capabilities."
"External portal functionality with suppliers and customers needs improvement."
"Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations."
"The user interface could be improved by making it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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 tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Because India is so competitive in the IT world, people will start to move away from SAP's pricing because they have a market monopoly. Soon, they will start losing the monopoly part to open source and other things. I don't think their monopoly will run for more than three to four years because people are getting away from these monopolies."
"​SAP is not for every business. It depends on what is required. SAP is always going to be expensive​."
"The cost of this solution is high."
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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
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
NetWeaver Enterprise Portal, SAP Portal
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Alliander N.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.