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IBM Integration Bus vs JBoss ESB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
JBoss ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 21.9%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JBoss ESB is 3.3%, up from 2.1% 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 Bus21.9%
JBoss ESB3.3%
Other74.8%
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.
AU
Efficient orchestration and security features improve business processes effortlessly
JBoss ESB should focus on startup and performance as EAP is heavier than lightweight Java frameworks, which impacts microservices and cloud environments. Improvements should include faster start times and reduced memory footprints. Better cold-start performance in containers should be emphasized. Cloud-native features must be enhanced since many enterprises are shifting to Kubernetes and OpenShift, making EAP more cloud-friendly. This could include providing smaller container images, native auto-scaling support, and improved integration with cloud configuration services. Enhancing the developer experience is crucial; while the current configuration is powerful, it can be complex for newcomers. As an experienced user, I navigate it easily, but newcomers struggle due to heavy reliance on XML configuration. Transitioning to a JSON-based configuration or YAML format would be beneficial, and simplifications in clustering setup for local testing would greatly assist users.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like best are the monitoring features."
"The Aspera feature for high-speed transfer is highly effective."
"I recommend it for large enterprises but only for specific use cases. You need to have a relatively mature integration practice in your organization to leverage its capabilities fully."
"It is a stable solution."
"It is user-friendly and a value-added tool for banks and other verticals."
"Seamlessly integrates your different applications."
"The most valuable feature is that it is clear and easy to learn."
"The solution addresses all of our middleware needs in respect of transformation, parsing, security and stability; everything really."
"The solution is very easy to use. I can download the trial version and just give it a go."
 

Cons

"Current aggregation implementation should be deprecated. MQ independent, as well as an intuitive solution, should be proposed."
"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."
"The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand."
"It needs improvement in terms of technical support as well as in terms of integration of data mining. I am not convinced about many things in this solution, such as the conversion of the DFDL or copybook file, which is the conversion from a text file to XML. It is very complex. They should also provide more information about this solution in the IBM Knowledge Center. I can get a lot of information from the IBM Knowledge Center about DataStage, but I don't get that much information about IBM Integration Bus. There is hardly any information even on the internet and various channels such as YouTube. They can provide good step-by-step documentation based on a company's requirements. It would be really helpful. My company is mainly looking for data mining and communicating with multiple servers. IBM Integration Bus is good for communicating with multiple servers, but it needs improvement for XML conversion and data mining. We have a lot of old systems that use XML."
"IBM doesn't really have a very strong community surrounding the product. Most of its direct competitors are open source solutions, and those have an excellent and well-developed community around the tech to help users navigate the ins and outs of the product. IBM is lacking in this area."
"IBM Integration Bus isn't particularly user-friendly and has a big learning curve."
"The tracing and debugging features are not up to date with more modern technology available."
"I would like to see more metered rest and API support. IBM is already working on it on Version 11, but it still needs improvement."
"JBoss ESB should focus on startup and performance as EAP is heavier than lightweight Java frameworks, which impacts microservices and cloud environments."
"The EPA, from what I understand, lacks a lot of features and it doesn't really know how to interface with legacy systems or how to develop APIs for legacy systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The maintenance and support of the product are very expensive."
"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"The price of the license could be cheaper."
"As customers, we always try to buy things as cheaply as possible. But the price for the IBM Integration Bus is fine. When we compare it to competitors, it's pretty much the same. However, there are a lot of open-source integration platforms coming to the market as well. So overall, the price is fine as far as licensed products are concerned."
"IBM Integration Bus solution is expensive and this is one of the reasons we are looking for an alternative, such as MuleSoft."
"Our licensing is based on a five-year contract, and as far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"The solution requires a license and is very expensive here in India."
"IBM is expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise47
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Rancore, Sprint, ResMed, Brazil's Ministry of Health, ING Services Polska
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Updated: August 2025.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.