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

IBM Integration Bus vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus 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
TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
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 TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is 4.0%, up from 3.6% 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.
Mustofa Yonus - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust product that needs to improve the functionality it offers related to API lifecycle management
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six to seven out of ten. My company consists of around 7000 employees, and we use the solution as an integrated service in around 300 to 400 systems, both internally and externally, making it a huge number. Our company uses the solution every minute and every second, and we can't function without it.

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 stability is mostly pretty good."
"The product is a user-customized tool so that you can adjust it to your specific needs pretty well with little trouble."
"I consider the solution to be one of the most stable in the market."
"The cost is pretty cheap, compared to what else is available in the market."
"I found all features valuable. There are a lot of connectors."
"The most valuable feature is the API integration."
"Seamlessly integrates your different applications."
"The solution is very stable."
"The product’s most valuable feature is stability."
"The most attractive and beneficial feature is the ease of development."
"The GUI and IDE features of this solution are easy to work with and to develop. We find application management easy using this solution. It is a stable product"
"The technology is really easy to learn."
"TIBCO has the platform in terms of speed and ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a service-oriented architecture, SOA-based."
"It is easy to develop. It has a very wide range of features. The older versions are very stable, and there are no issues with the product."
 

Cons

"The user interface could be improved in a future release."
"Sometimes migration takes too long."
"The next versions are moving toward container use. It would be a shame to make the product highly complex just to support one pattern of deployment. It is my hope that IBM continues to focus on practical functionality that is simple and cost-effective."
"There is room for improvement in providing more specific error messages and error criteria."
"I think security should be more simplified."
"The solution could improve by having built-in implementation and secure monitoring without the need for API Connect."
"I can't say that there is any improvement I’m looking for. I’m new and haven’t connected with all features. For all drawbacks that were in the old version, I think they have been solved. The scalability needs improvement."
"IBM Integration Bus isn't particularly user-friendly and has a big learning curve."
"We'd like to see improvements in product support."
"If TIBCO could be able to sort the size of their base image in the Container edition, it would be really marvelous. Right now it's around 299 MB. We'd really want it to reduce to a few MBs."
"The stability of their latest version is not on par with their classic version 5.X."
"In the configuration, where we need to customize, it takes more time that we expect it to, ideally."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"The solution is very expensive when you use multiple components, it would b better if this could be reduced."
"Our version does not have cloud capabilities."
"Migration to cloud solutions or products should be made convenient, transparent, and easily understandable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
"IBM is expensive."
"The maintenance and support of the product are very expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is high."
"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."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"When it comes to cost, TIBCO is much more competitive than a product like Pega."
"The licensing cost is a challenge for quite a few customers."
"The biggest issue disadvantage of TIBCO is that it is expensive."
"Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
"The price is on the higher side. For the same price, if I go to the previous version, I would have got a lot more capacity with similar kinds of features."
"Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) solutions are best for your needs.
865,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust.
What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
I don't like the product's API management platform, as it doesn't offer users enough functionality to help with API lifecycle management, making it a product that is way behind its competitors. The...
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
ActiveMatrix Service Bus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Colonial Life, CTBC Bank, New World Mobility, QUALCOMM, Swisscom Mobile, T-Mobile USA, Tata Teleservices, Telecom Italia
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.