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 June 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.1%, up from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is 3.6%, 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 feature is that it is clear and easy to learn."
"Seamlessly integrates your different applications."
"The most valuable feature is the API integration."
"The stability is mostly pretty good."
"What I like best are the monitoring features."
"It is very straightforward. It is very user-friendly integration."
"The multi-approach and the multi-capabilities are valuable."
"IBM Integration Bus's best feature is integration."
"The most attractive and beneficial feature is the ease of development."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust."
"The solution is very stable."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring, ease of use, and easy to understand development GUI."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
 

Cons

"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."
"Migrating to this solution is complex and it would be helpful if they had a way to convert existing integrations."
"We have to stop the integration server to start the debugging process."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The solution is complex and there is a need for more resources and greatly improved quality."
"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."
"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."
"The password settings need improvement."
"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."
"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 stability of their latest version is not on par with their classic version 5.X."
"Our version does not have cloud capabilities."
"Migration to cloud solutions or products should be made convenient, transparent, and easily understandable."
"The solution is very expensive when you use multiple components, it would b better if this could be reduced."
"In the configuration, where we need to customize, it takes more time that we expect it to, ideally."
"The intermediate version that we are using has stability issues. These stability issues should be resolved, but it seems like TIBCO is not focusing on resolving these issues. The resolution timelines are quite high even for high-priority incidents. Its price should be lower. Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
"The price of the license could be cheaper."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"It is a highly-priced solution."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive. There are cheaper products in the marketplace."
"IBM Integration Bus itself is prices fair but App-Connect is a bit expensive which we use in conjunction with it."
"Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive."
"The licensing cost is a challenge for quite a few customers."
"When it comes to cost, TIBCO is much more competitive than a product like Pega."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.