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IBM Integration Bus vs Red Hat Fuse 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
Red Hat Fuse
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Red Hat Fuse is 7.0%, down from 7.4% 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%
Red Hat Fuse7.0%
Other72.6%
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.
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

"Having the solution come from IBM you know you are receiving a product of quality in components and in the services, it is very good."
"The Cloud Pak for Integration is a useful feature."
"The message queue connectors are the most valuable feature. They have built-in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP and Oracle Database."
"Promotes the reuse of developed resources to more efficiently consume resources."
"like the API lead integration, which is more focused, and I also like real-time integration."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"It is very straightforward. It is very user-friendly integration."
"Content is easily infiltrated in the eclipse infrastructure."
"One of the features I found most valuable in Red Hat Fuse is that it has a lot of containers so you won't have to worry about load balancing. In the past, there was a cut-off, but nowadays, Red Hat Fuse is moving off of that, so my team is utilizing it the most for load balancing, particularly running goal applications and three to five containers. There's automatic load balancing so you won't have to worry too much. I also found that component-wise, you don't have to do much coding in Red Hat Fuse because everything is configurable, for example, XML-based coding. Coding isn't that difficult. Performance-wise, I also found the solution to be quite good and its processing is quite fast. My team is processing a huge amount of data with the help of Red Hat Fuse."
"This solution's adaptability to our use case has helped us integrate our systems seamlessly."
"The most valuable feature is the software development environment."
"I found it was quite easy to set up and implement."
"More than a feature, I would say that the reliability of the platform is the most valuable aspect."
"The routing system of the product supports Camel routing"
"With a premium, one can get support 24 hours."
"What I like about Red Hat Fuse is that it's a well-established integration software. I find all aspects of the tool positive."
 

Cons

"The memory footprint should be minimized."
"It would be beneficial for it to function more as an iPaaS, with the runtime available in the cloud, potentially on platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud."
"They should add connectors to banking applications and other specific industries."
"IBM Integration Bus can improve JSON Schema validations. We don't have any kind of nodes that can support that kind of validation. If we want to containerize it by means of the docker's containers in the clouds, we are not able to manage it very well."
"Session management can sometimes hand forcing server reboots."
"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."
"In terms of improvement, the UI should be more user-friendly."
"The tracing and debugging features are not up to date with more modern technology available."
"There is definitely a bit of a learning curve."
"Red Hat Fuse doesn't have a lot of administrative control like other applications."
"What could be improved in Red Hat Fuse is the deployment process because it's still very heavy. It's containerized, but now with Spring Boot and other microservices-related containers, deployment is still very heavy. Red Hat Fuse still has room for improvement in terms of becoming more containerized and more oriented."
"The stability of the solution is an area with a shortcoming that needs to be improved."
"The testing part, specifically when running it in the cloud, could be improved. It's a little bit complex, especially considering its cloud nature."
"What needs to be improved in Red Hat Fuse is on the development side because when you use it for development purposes, it lacks a user interface compared to what MuleSoft has, so it's a bit difficult for users."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"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."
"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 is expensive."
"The solution requires a license and is very expensive here in India."
"The licensing model of IBM Integration Bus is good. It's a yearly subscription. However, the price is depending on the model that you choose. If it's a Cloud version, then you can pay per month or you can pay it annually upfront. There are three-year options available, but it depends on what deployment you have."
"The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
"It is not cheap. It has its cost. It is one of the high-cost solutions."
"We use the standard license, but you need the container platform in order to run it."
"In terms of pricing, Red Hat Fuse is a bit expensive because nowadays, if I'm just comparing it with OpenShift with Kubernetes, so Kubernetes and OpenShift, are similar, and Kubernetes is open source, so Red Hat Fuse is quite expensive in terms of support, but Red Hat Fuse provides value for money because it provides good support. If you want to get something, you need to pay for it."
"You need to pay for the license. It's not free."
"The solution doesn't have independent licensing."
"After doing some Googling and comparisons, the main standouts were MuleSoft and Red Hat Fuse. One of the big factors in our decision to go with Fuse was the licensing cost. It was cheaper to go with Fuse."
"Red Hat Fuse saved us money. It is a lot easier to license for cloud deployments."
"Our license for Red Hat Fuse is around $27,000 per year, which is very expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business3
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise12
 

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 needs improvement with Red Hat Fuse?
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 H...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Fuse?
Our company used Red Hat Fuse to integrate layers of numerous applications. The solution has also been used in our organization for orchestration purposes of multiple microservices over the years. ...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Fuse?
I would rate Red Hat Fuse as eight out of ten. When the solution was being used in our organization, the JBoss or Red Hat support was great. The solution was highly stable, robust, and scalable, an...
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
Fuse ESB, FuseSource
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Avianca, American Product Distributors (APD), Kings College Hospital, AMD, CenturyLink, AECOM, E*TRADE
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. Red Hat Fuse and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,785 professionals have used our research since 2012.