Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Zend PHP Engine 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
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd), API Management (12th)
Zend PHP Engine
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.6%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 1.5%, up from 1.2% 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.
SatyendraGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature
The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.  A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it. I have been Zend PHP Engine for nine years.  Multiple people are using the solution.  Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"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."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"It offers good support for various types of classes, along with many open source libraries that we can readily utilize in our application development process. This gives us a lot of options when it comes to custom development solutions, without having to worry about licensing or other programming-related issues."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"This solution is really easy for me to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the speed at which it compiles and sends the dynamic cache."
"The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature."
"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."
"We have not encountered issues with scalability as long as we effectively use caching to optimize performance of our web applications as well as a proper use of database connectivity."
"Offers a complete environment to develop PHP applications. It is valuable because it allows you to have a complete stack (PHP, MySQL, Zend Server) enabling the building of a development environment, and to deploy to the production system."
 

Cons

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"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."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"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."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."
"Although it offers a complete environment to develop and deploy PHP applications, it has some limitations. For example, when the volume of data increased exponentially, I had problems scaling the system."
"A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it."
"In terms of improvement, it doesn't support concurrent processing. When we want to process anything on a concurrent basis, we have to divide it into a number of things, like a queue, or we have to run it using Cron jobs. We would like to have the capability to run any thread or process in parallel."
"The solution can be quicker."
"The biggest problem with PHP is you have to write lot of conditions or have to use a framework."
"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."
"The main area that Zend needs to improve is to support asynchronous programming tasks, which is facilitated in PHP 7, but not at the same degree as HHVM.​​"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"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 is an expensive solution."
"No problem with pricing and licensing, as tools are open source. You have to consider training cost, mindset setup cost, as part of the TCO."
"Its pricing depends on the number of users."
"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."
"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."
"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
 

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...
What do you like most about Zend PHP Engine?
The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.
What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?
Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
PHP Engine
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Cisco
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Zend PHP Engine and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.