IBM DataPower Gateway vs TIBCO Cloud API Management comparison

IBM and TIBCO are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while TIBCO is ranked #27 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 3.7% mindshare in APIM, compared to TIBCO’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of TIBCO users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 30 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,383 Views
4,037 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

TIBCO Cloud API Management

Read 12 TIBCO Cloud API Management reviews

857 Views
857 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

TIBCO Cloud API Management

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM DataPower Gateway and TIBCO Cloud API Management compete in API management solutions. IBM leads in deployment efficiency and customer support, while TIBCO is favored for its rich features and overall value perception.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway offers advanced security, enterprise-grade integration, and high-performance scalability. TIBCO Cloud API Management focuses on a user-friendly cloud-native approach, adaptive integration capabilities, and flexible policy control. TIBCO's feature set positions it as a versatile solution for dynamic environments compared to IBM's focus on security and integration.

Room for Improvement: IBM could enhance feature diversity, cloud-native capabilities, and flexibility in policy management. TIBCO may improve customer interaction, stability in containerized environments, and fine-grained configuration options. Both products can focus on expanding their capabilities to better serve varied business needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower Gateway is known for straightforward deployment and strong customer service, providing reliable support for enterprises. TIBCO Cloud API Management excels in cloud deployments but may improve customer interaction to match IBM's service quality.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway is cost-effective, offering attractive ROI for enterprises. TIBCO Cloud API Management, though with potentially higher initial costs, provides value through extensive capabilities and scalability benefits, with long-term benefits justifying the investment for a comprehensive solution.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. TIBCO Cloud API Management Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. TIBCO Cloud API Management

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 API Management

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

TIBCO Cloud API Management

Ranking in API Management

27th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Cloud API Management is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway	3.7%
TIBCO Cloud API Management	1.0%
Other	95.3%

API Management

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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AftabAlam

E2E Delivery Expert - Ignite Delivery & Technical Enablement at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Trust and reliability have been established with long-term usage and significant integration benefits

TIBCO Cloud API Management offers API management plus the ability to orchestrate all inbound and outbound API calls. When an API is exposed to the external system, it functions as a single integration. Behind the scenes, you can perform extensive API modeling, aggregation, and downstream systems can have more than one API and give the response back to a single API call. It has many features such as orchestration rule engine, which makes it quite good. TIBCO Cloud API Management has brought numerous benefits for our organization, especially in product maturity and support. Sales and support are strong areas, and I think it is very good. If they do not get the right support, then they should consider other options. The sales and support also provides cost optimization.

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 a scalable solution."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes."

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

"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."

"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."

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

"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"The most valuable feature is the ability to have different packages based on the API keys. The same core system can have different packages based on different environments."

"Very few outages or SLA issues."

"TIBCO Cloud API Management has brought numerous benefits for our organization, especially in product maturity and support."

"It has something called packages. In that way, it's good because we have some pre-built packages. So, if you want to onboard different APIs, we can just add them to the package, and it's there."

"The control that we have and the security features are very valuable. With regard to API implementation or API orchestration, it works very well in the cloud because as soon as you create an API with one click, you can actually expose your APIs."

"The solution is a good general API manager. They have a few propriety features but are offering items that are standard in the industry as well."

"We can completely manage the APIs at the org level and BU (business unit) level."

"It is easy to work with ."

More TIBCO Cloud API Management pros

Cons

"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."

"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."

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

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

"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."

"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."

"They should add features to manage API integrations."

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"There are some areas for improvement in TIBCO Cloud API Management, especially regarding network protocols such as SMPP, SMTP, GVI, SVI, and Diameter which could show performance issues in terms of handling and connection management pooling efficiency."

"Policy management has been a bit of a concern."

"The management console of API and customers' applications are not the most intuitive."

"They can fix some stability issues and probably make it more user-friendly so that not only an IT savvy person but an end-user can also easily navigate through this solution."

"Monetization is not that great in API management. You need customization. Improvements are needed with sandbox local as well as with monetization. Those features are missing."

"It lacks many features at the API gateway compared to other solutions."

"It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the security layer on top of it, it's not that easy either."

"The security needs improvement, specifically, propagation of security to an API. Calling other APIs is something that is missing in the product and that makes us think about going to a competitor."

More TIBCO Cloud API Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

"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 cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."

"The licensing cost is very expensive."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"TIBCO Cloud API Management is not an expensive solution."

"Its price is pretty reasonable. There are some lightweight API options available in the market, but given the feature set that TIBCO provides, its price is really reasonable."

"We have secured terms on which we have been happy to renew for a number of years."

"Licensing is quite flexible."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Retailer

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	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

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 TIBCO Cloud API Management?

The platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token refresh, throttling, and enforcement of payloads.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Cloud API Management?

My primary role was to assess the solution from a capability perspective. So, there are some issues with the licensing cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with TIBCO Cloud API Management?

There are some areas for improvement in TIBCO Cloud API Management, especially regarding network protocols such as SMPP, SMTP, GVI, SVI, and Diameter which could show performance issues in terms of...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 36% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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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

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Apigee vs TIBCO Cloud API Management

Compared 30% of the time

Layer7 API Management vs TIBCO Cloud API Management

Compared 25% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs TIBCO Cloud API Management

Compared 16% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs TIBCO Cloud API Management

Compared 11% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs TIBCO Cloud API Management

Compared 9% of the time

More TIBCO Cloud API Management Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

October 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

TIBCO Cloud API Management

September 2025

Download TIBCO Cloud API Management product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

Mashery API Management

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

APIs are critical business assets that form the foundation of digital business enabling new business models, improved operational efficiency, and connected customer experiences. TIBCO Cloud API Management empowers users to maximize the business value of their APIs products through an end-to-end solution that provides full lifecycle API management alongside capabilities for API discovery, implementation and analytics that speed business value realization across your digital ecosystem.

TIBCO

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

uShip, Sabre, TouchTunes, Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, athenahealth, Coca-Cola Enterprises, CentralIndex.com, Constant Contact, Edmunds.com, FoodEssentials, Getty Images, Klout, Rovi, Rotten Tomatoes, Sportradar, TomTom, ACTIVE.com

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. TIBCO Cloud API Management

September 2025

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