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IBM Integration Bus vs JBoss ESB vs Red Hat Fuse 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.0%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JBoss ESB is 3.1%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Fuse is 7.2%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
RS
Easy to use with flexible pricing, but needs more flexibility surrounding integrations
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. I'm not sure if it is possible, however, we would like to see features that allow for legacy systems so that they can continue to be developed and managed well. The solution should provide some more general studio features. We should be able to manipulate the platform in order to do some integrations on our own. There needs to be a bit more flexibility.
Kaushal Kedia - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a single console for all applications and supports Camel routing
Containerization is one key area where the product can improve, but it probably has already improved in JBOS integration. On a few occasions, our company's production team faced an issue with Red Hat Fuse; the screen displayed that the containers had gone down while, in reality, they were running in the background. The user interface and the back-end code were not in sync in the aforementioned situation, which our organization frequently faced while using Red Hat Fuse. But at our company, we were using an older version of Red Hat Fuse in which we faced the issues. From the JBOS end, the product was very frequently changed from Red Hat, and it was difficult for our clients to keep investing money in every upgrade. Six or seven years back, Red Hat Fuse was one of the best solutions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've been using IBM Integration Bus for seven years to create a service-oriented architecture in our bank and implement SOAR infrastructure using this tool. It helps us with internal services for core banking and different digital channels. We also use it to expose our services to other banks and companies and consume services from outside our bank using proxy servers."
"The product helps efficiently work with different connectors from different back-end systems."
"The product is a user-customized tool so that you can adjust it to your specific needs pretty well with little trouble."
"It is user-friendly and a value-added tool for banks and other verticals."
"IBM Integration Bus's best feature is integration."
"The Cloud Pak for Integration is a useful feature."
"The interface is quite stable."
"The solution is stable and can scale relatively easily."
"The solution is very easy to use. I can download the trial version and just give it a go."
"We use it because it is easy to integrate with any other application...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution nine out of ten."
"What I like about Red Hat Fuse is that it's a well-established integration software. I find all aspects of the tool positive."
"The support training that comes with the product is amazing."
"The most valuable feature is the software development environment."
"The initial setup process is quite straightforward."
"The process workflow, where we can orchestrate and design the application by defining different routes, is really useful."
"The most valuable feature is that it's the same as Apache Camel."
"The solution is stable. We have gone for months or years without any issue. There are no memory restarts, so from my point of view, it's very stable."
 

Cons

"Technical support is something that should be better."
"The cloud deployment of the IBM Integration Bus should be made easier."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"Sometimes migration takes too long."
"IBM Integration Bus can improve by implementing no-code or drag-and-drop adapters development, similar to what is available in Red Hat."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve it's security and its proactive notification of security issues."
"Its integration with Cloud Pak components could be better."
"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."
"The pricing model could be adjusted. The price should be lower."
"I would like to see more up-to-date documentation and examples from Red Hat Fuse."
"The solution will be discontinued in 2024."
"My company doesn't have any experience with other messaging tools, so it's difficult to mention what areas could be improved in Red Hat Fuse, but it could be pricing because I find it expensive."
"For improvement, they can consider the way we collaborate with other applications...Right now, in Red Hat Fuse, everything is not available under one umbrella."
"While it's a good platform, the pricing is a bit high."
"Currently, the main point of concern for us is how flexible it is to cater to different requirements. It should be more flexible."
"It might help if, in the documentation, there were a comments section or some kind of community input. I might read a page of documentation and not fully understand everything, or it might not quite answer the question I had. If there were a section associated with it where people could discuss the same topic, that might be helpful because somebody else might have already asked the question that I had."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not cheap. It has its cost. It is one of the high-cost solutions."
"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive. There are cheaper products in the marketplace."
"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."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"The maintenance and support of the product are very expensive."
Information not available
"The solution doesn't have independent licensing."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Pricing has been something that we have been working with Red Hat on, year over year. We have preferred pricing with the university because we are involved in education and research."
"Red Hat Fuse is an expensive tool, though I cannot answer how much it costs as that's confidential."
"We found other solutions were more costly."
"This is an expensive product. It costs a lot and although it's worth the money, the explanations that we need to give to our top executives are highly complicated."
"Our license for Red Hat Fuse is around $27,000 per year, which is very expensive."
"The most important feature of Fuse is the cost. It is open source and a cheap option for an ESB. So, most of the clients in the Middle East and Asian countries prefer this ESB. Other ESBs, like MuleSoft and IBM API Connect, are pretty expensive. Because it is open source, Red Hat Fuse is the cheapest solution, providing almost every integration capability."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
18%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 Mu...
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 t...
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...
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What do you like most about Red Hat Fuse?
The process workflow, where we can orchestrate and design the application by defining different routes, is really use...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Fuse?
You need to pay for the license. It's not free. I'm not aware of the exact prices. There are no extra costs in additi...
What needs improvement with Red Hat Fuse?
Containerization is one key area where the product can improve, but it probably has already improved in JBOS integrat...
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
No data available
Fuse ESB, FuseSource
 

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
Avianca, American Product Distributors (APD), Kings College Hospital, AMD, CenturyLink, AECOM, E*TRADE
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.