IBM DataPower Gateway vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

IBM and WSO2 are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while WSO2 is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 3.7% mindshare in APIM, compared to WSO2’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of WSO2 users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 31 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,383 Views
4,037 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

WSO2 API Manager

Read 41 WSO2 API Manager reviews

4,899 Views
4,899 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

WSO2 API Manager

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM DataPower Gateway and WSO2 API Manager compete in the API management category. IBM DataPower Gateway is preferred for its enterprise-grade security and integration capabilities, while WSO2 API Manager stands out for its open-source nature and modern features.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway offers robust security features, seamless integration with enterprise systems, and enhanced traffic management. It effectively operates in environments requiring advanced security and integration. WSO2 API Manager is known for its open-source technology, customization capabilities, and extensive analytics, making it suitable for developers seeking flexibility and innovation.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could enhance its user-friendliness and reduce its complexity in deployment processes. More customization options and online resources would benefit users. WSO2 API Manager could improve by incorporating newer API security features, enhancing its user interface for easier navigation, and expanding its support for varied authentication methods.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower Gateway is designed for large enterprises with complex integration needs, supported by reliable customer service. WSO2 API Manager appeals with its user-friendly setup process and adaptable solutions, supported by extensive online resources and community support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM DataPower Gateway involves a higher initial setup cost, potentially delaying ROI, but offers significant security and integration benefits. WSO2 API Manager provides a cost-effective initial investment due to its open-source nature, facilitating faster ROI with lower setup costs and economical scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. WSO2 API Manager Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. WSO2 API Manager

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)

WSO2 API Manager

Ranking in API Management

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

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 WSO2 API Manager is 4.7%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
WSO2 API Manager	4.7%
IBM DataPower Gateway	3.7%
Other	91.6%

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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AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

Effortless integration with REST APIs enhances business process management

The product's capabilities for integrating with REST APIs are valuable. We use API key-based security integration, where API keys are exchanged between the REST APIs. This ensures security. In the future, we might also use OAuth-based integration. Internally, the business process manager allows us to define the process and integrate with it. Additionally, the capability to define processes and seamless integration with APIs enhances our operations.

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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

"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."

"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."

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

"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."

"IBM DataPower Gateway has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to implement rate limits on the different API usage, which is the benefit."

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

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

"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"WSO2 API Manager is open-source, which offers a range of features not found in other open-source API tools."

"The most beneficial feature of WSO2 API Manager is its capability to use Swagger to define and then populate the API."

"A complete integration suite and a good platform."

"The documentation is good."

"API management lifecycle is the most valuable."

"WSO2 API Manager provides strong internal API security, including token-based authentication and HTTPS support for various formats like REST. However, the newer API security features that are emerging are not available yet. They might be in development, but for now, internal API security is well-covered."

"It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability."

"WSO2 API Manager is easy to use."

More WSO2 API Manager pros

Cons

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

"I would like the tool to improve its training."

"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."

"The DCDR process should be less complex."

"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."

"It is a costly product."

"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"From what I have experienced from the versions I have tried, they could improve on the multi-tenant environments to allow some kind of SSO single sign-on between tenant."

"Integration is an area that needs to be improved."

"I think they could greatly improve the general UX with their solutions."

"The solution could be more user friendly for engineers."

"Based on our recent large scaling project, the latency needs to be improved."

"We found WSO2 API Manager to be a bit complex."

"I would improve the product documentation. There are some gaps, and it can be difficult to find the proper documentation for the product if you need to solve something."

"From a product perspective, the first thing is that although the documentation provided by WSO2 is good, it could be much better. We're in the middle of a complex migration, moving away from VMs to Kubernetes with the latest version of WSO2 and good documentation is essential to us right now."

More WSO2 API Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."

"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."

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

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

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

"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"As far as I'm aware, the costs are not minimal but satisfactory."

"There is a subscription-based pricing structure and also the open-sourced version available."

"The challenge is the increasing pricing, which has led some customers to consider alternatives, like using Spring Boot solutions instead. The rising costs, especially as cores and usage increase, have been a concern, prompting some to migrate to other products."

"It's not expensive, but it could be cheaper."

"WSO2 API Manager is a costly solution, and its pricing is not competitive enough compared to other products."

"WSO2 API Manager is quite an expensive tool. I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is high."

"I am using the free version."

"I think the other competitors that are providing the same solution are quite expensive. WSO2 API Manager is quite cheap."

More WSO2 API Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

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	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	21

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 WSO2 API Manager?

It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability.

See all answers

What needs improvement with WSO2 API Manager?

We have encountered some concerns with concurrency. Our integrations do not handle high-volume transactions, and when benchmarking, some issues arose with concurrent testing. It is uncertain whethe...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?

We use WSO2 API Manager ( /products/wso2-api-manager-reviews ) to integrate our telecom products with third-party REST APIs. We are orchestrating services where our business process defines the int...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 35% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

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

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 19% of the time

Apigee vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 17% of the time

Apache APISIX vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 9% of the time

More WSO2 API Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

October 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

WSO2 API Manager

October 2025

Download WSO2 API Manager product report

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

WSO2 API Manager is a comprehensive platform that allows organizations to design, publish, and manage APIs.

It provides a centralized interface for API governance, security, and analytics.

With features like API monetization and developer portal, it enables businesses to drive innovation and create new revenue streams.

WSO2

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

1. eBay 2. StubHub 3. Cisco 4. Verizon 5. T-Mobile 6. Vodafone 7. Orange 8. BT Group 9. Telstra 10. Deutsche Telekom 11. Swisscom 12. AT&T 13. Sprint 14. Telefonica 15. O2 16. British Airways 17. Lufthansa 18. Emirates 19. Qatar Airways 20. Etihad Airways 21. Air France 22. KLM 23. American Express 24. Visa 25. Mastercard 26. PayPal 27. Western Union 28. Citibank 29. HSBC 30. Barclays 31. Santander 32. Goldman Sachs

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. WSO2 API Manager

September 2025

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