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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
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (4th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (7th)
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Po...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
20th
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 May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.6%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal is 1.3%, down from 1.4% 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.
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

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"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:"
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"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."
"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 very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"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."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"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."
"Workflow functionality and internal portal capabilities are the most important features."
"From the use of this solution, we have been able to establish better processes and have greater management of our company."
"They integrated it with the SAP router."
 

Cons

"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"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."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"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 initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"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 product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"Due to our business, some setups were very complex."
"External portal functionality with suppliers and customers needs improvement."
"We encountered stability issues, especially on external functionality around its RFP capabilities."
"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 product is expensive."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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 solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"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​."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Recruiting/Hr Firm
8%
 

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...
Ask a question
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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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.