IBM DataPower Gateway vs Tyk comparison

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IBM DataPower Gateway

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM DataPower Gateway and Tyk compete in the API management category, each offering distinct advantages. IBM DataPower Gateway holds the upper hand in security and enterprise-level integration, while Tyk stands out for its open-source flexibility and scalability.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway provides comprehensive security features, transaction routing, and enhanced policy management. Its robust security measures and enterprise-level integrations are particularly valuable. Tyk offers open-source flexibility, seamless scalability, and high customizability, empowering developers to create tailored solutions easily.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could enhance its agility and ease of customization to better serve agile environments. It may also benefit from a more flexible deployment model and user-friendly interface. Tyk could improve the maturity of its cloud version and address its nascent stage of development. Additionally, Tyk might focus on expanding its capabilities to match more established competitors in the market.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower Gateway offers a traditional deployment model that is well-suited to complex enterprise infrastructures, backed by dedicated customer service channels. Tyk provides a streamlined deployment process, particularly beneficial for cloud-native settings. Its responsive customer support enhances accessibility and user experience.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway involves a significant upfront setup cost, with great ROI for enterprises prioritizing security and compliance. Tyk's cost-effective setup appeals to startups, offering a scalable ROI as organizations grow. Tyk's pricing revolves around openness, making it attractive for cost-sensitive environments.

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

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Tyk

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) (6th), Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)

Tyk

Ranking in API Management

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 Tyk is 2.2%, up from 1.8% 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%
Tyk	2.2%
Other	94.1%

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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MarkDoherty

Founding Director at Point Group

Fastest to get up and running and fewer idiosyncrasies than competitors

In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them. But as a product, it's very difficult to find any major faults.

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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

"The product is stable...The product is scalable."

"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."

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

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

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

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

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"It is a good product for API management."

"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."

"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."

"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."

"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."

"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."

Cons

"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."

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."

"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."

"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 components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."

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

"Its support services could be better."

"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."

"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."

"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."

"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."

"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."

"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The product is expensive."

"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."

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

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

"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."

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"The price is low compared to other products of a similar type."

"We are using the open-source version of this product, so there are no licensing costs for its use."

"It had a free version, which suited many of our needs, but not all, but we were happy to go ahead with the licensed version as well, which is the paid version."

"The cost curve is far smoother, both in terms of volume and the number of calls it's running on, compared to most competitors. So it's a tad more expensive at the very low end, but the curve is nothing like Apigee or some of the others."

"There are different versions and plans available depending on the requirements, so there is flexibility in terms of the pricing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

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?

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...

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...

What do you like most about Tyk?

The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tyk?

The pricing is actually quite competitive. In Azure environments, it gets beaten by Microsoft API Gateway, but on the other hand, it offers some features that Microsoft lacks. So it really comes do...

What needs improvement with Tyk?

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Tyk

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Tyk

Compared 12% of the time

Apigee vs Tyk

Compared 11% of the time

Layer7 API Management vs Tyk

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2025

Download Tyk product report

August 2025

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

No data available

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

Tyk is an open source API Gateway that is fast and scalable, an API management platform featuring an API gateway, analytics, developer portal and dashboard. Available in three flavours to best suit your architecture and governance. We offer full cloud or on-premises options, and the best of both worlds with our unique hybrid model. www.tyk.io

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

Trip Advisor, Juniper Networks, AT&T