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IBM Integration Bus vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 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 Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM WebSphere Message Broker
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 20.4%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.0%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Integration Bus20.4%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker4.0%
Other75.6%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.
BrajendraKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability
I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine 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 most valuable features of the IBM Integration Bus are flexibility. It's also an alternative for integrating it with other projects, which we are not ready at this time to do, such as switching to tunnels. The tunnels would be used with other partners to make sure everything is secured."
"The error handling and monitoring functionalities of IBM Integration Bus are very good."
"The interface is quite stable."
"It has the ability to be deployed without rewriting the code."
"I have found the inbound and outbound adapter confirmations valuable."
"The solution is stable and can scale relatively easily."
"The solution offers good performance and is stable."
"The product helps efficiently work with different connectors from different back-end systems."
"The solution has good integration."
"It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy."
"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."
"Integration and mapping are easy, which is a major advantage."
"Straightforward development and deployment."
"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."
"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."
"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"
 

Cons

"Regarding the pricing setup cost and licensing for IBM Integration Bus, I believe it is expensive. The IBM tool is now expensive because they moved to the cloud."
"The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand."
"IBM Integration Bus could improve by having a more lightweight installation. Additionally, automation could improve."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"IBM Integration Bus could be easier to manage, but this is true of all vendors. It doesn't always do what it says on the box."
"Its documentation is currently lacking. We have different environments where we use our configuration services, but we are not able to find documentation about how to deploy the local code to the server and how to set it up on a server level. I would like more documents from IBM that explain which variables should be in your machine while building a project, and when you deploy the code into the server, what should be their values. There are some variable values. I could not find such documentation. While working on a project, I developed the code on a local machine, and while deploying the code to our test environment, I made a couple of mistakes. We had to change some values at the server level, but we couldn't find any documentation regarding this, which made the task difficult."
"IBM does not support orchestration, which is how they designed it, and other BPM tools in the market support orchestration. If they merged the BPM capability into this product, then it would be a better solution."
"Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods."
"As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordingly."
"I know that Message Broker was a very tightly copied product with another IBM product, that is, IBM MQ. I would like to have a little bit more decoupling from the IBM MQ because it should not be a prerequisite for IBM WebSphere Message Broker usage."
"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."
"There is some lag in the GUI. There have been some performance issues and maybe it's because of the application data."
"The installation configuration is quite difficult."
"The solution can add container engines such as docker."
"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"IBM Integration Bus itself is prices fair but App-Connect is a bit expensive which we use in conjunction with it."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive. There are cheaper products in the marketplace."
"I generally do not get involved in the licensing or pricing because I'm a hardcore technical guy, but I'm aware of the fact that IBM is highly expensive, so not everybody can afford it. All the products are licensed."
"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"For small companies, First of all, there are a lot of free products that could be used for integration. It can use the cloud or new implementation in the past. But if the tool is IBM, the official box in your company, you can make your submission and also publish the cloud to the work file. But let’s say, if you are working with premises, then you have to buy a reasonable main full support and gain experience with your product."
"It is a highly-priced solution."
"The price of the IBM Integration Bus is expensive. If you compare the price to the cloud version you can purchase what you need but the on-premise version price is flat."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."
"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."
"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."
"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."
"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"
"This product is more expensive than competing products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP, oracle database, and this Civil connector is there. Of course, we have thi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
WebSphere Message Broker
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. IBM WebSphere Message Broker and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.