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IBM Integration Bus vs WSO2 Enterprise Integrator 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
WSO2 Enterprise Integrator
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (29th)
 

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 WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.4%, up from 5.2% 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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Decreases the development timeframe and costs
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for easy integration with third-party systems. Often, customers decide to develop using open-source tools like Spring Boot if there aren't many connectors required to avoid increasing costs. They'll develop this way and then deploy using APIM, the bare minimum needed. It is mainly required for very complicated setups with many connectors. In the implementations I've seen, people often used open-source tools because there weren't many third-party systems involved—just their organization's own systems. From WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, I expect them to bring up more and more connectors in the future. That's the main expectation. Having more connectors in various areas will help us when discussing new requirements. I don't have any specific use case right now, so I can't name a particular connector. But, as new technologies emerge, the relevant connectors should be there for those. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator mainly helps with the integration part, which can be simplified only if you have relevant connectors for whatever you're doing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It aligns well with containerized environments, which increases its scalability and high availability."
"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."
"IBM Integration Bus' most valuable features are its performance, fast and easy development, and easy support."
"IBM Integration Bus has been effective in facilitating our messaging and service-oriented architecture (SOA) or bus architecture. So, we're already utilizing it to transform the data from the source it's sending. It converts the data from the format the source sends it into the format the destination system requires. So we are transforming the messages, which are required by the destination system; that's the one way."
"The solution offers good performance and is stable."
"One of the most valuable features is App Connect Enterprise makes it possible to deploy it in the OpenShift cluster, which is very good. Overall the solution is very flexible."
"The product helps efficiently work with different connectors from different back-end systems."
"My favorite feature is the XML-based DFDL mapping, which is a tool that allows you to graphically map legacy data formats to modern data formats."
"The customer service executives are very responsive."
"I like the user-friendly system and development of the service-oriented architecture."
"The productivity is the most valuable feature. It is very easy to write remediations."
"It's a very complete product. It allows us to network security and add more layers of security to the system."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"The installation process is easy."
"It was mostly easy to set up the product."
"The connectors have been the most impactful features for handling integrations. I can use these connectors when I need specific connectivity with a third party, like a core banking system in BFSI. I don't need to do all the development. I take the specific connector, put in the IP address and password, and it takes care of everything."
 

Cons

"Session management can sometimes hand forcing server reboots."
"This solution would benefit from improvements to the configuration interface."
"The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand."
"We decided to move away from IBM Integration Bus for IT technical refreshments."
"IBM could improve its connectivity."
"The solution is too expensive for smaller companies."
"The tracing and debugging features are not up to date with more modern technology available."
"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 setup can be difficult for those not familiar with the solution."
"There are a lot of security settings that when you apply you have to re-apply again every time you modify a setting. It is something that really needs to be enhanced."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to see them bring back a feature, from earlier versions, that was very useful in debugging and finding issues."
"If I have to buy software, then it becomes expensive for me."
"The micro integrator should be improved. There is room for enhancement considering alternative integration components."
"They should release upgrades more frequently."
"The integration capabilities need to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
"IBM Integration Bus solution is expensive and this is one of the reasons we are looking for an alternative, such as MuleSoft."
"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."
"IBM is expensive."
"Pricing is on par with its competition."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
"The solution costs about 20,000 or 30,000 euros per year, per instance."
"The cost is better than IBM Cloud Pak."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The pricing of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator for enterprise subscriptions can be considered expensive, especially from the perspective of someone who prefers open-source software."
"It is a low-cost solution."
"The open-source, unsupported version is available free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

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 WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The product has reasonable and competitive pricing for enterprise customers. It is expensive for small businesses especially. They are using the open-source solution, and they find it expensive sin...
What needs improvement with WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
Something that could be improved in WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is that the problem is not a lack of capability or functionalities. The problem is that it is a very complex environment. To put your ...
 

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
West
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.