IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB comparison

The compared IBM and Salesforce solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #4 in BBM , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 15.7% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #2 in E , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 19.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...

Read 9 IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services reviews

1,697 Views
1,307 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 51 Mule ESB reviews

4,282 Views
3,212 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...

Mule ESB

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services and Mule ESB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, SAP, IBM and others in Business-to-Business Middleware.

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Business-to-Business Middleware

June 2025

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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 Sterling B2B Integratio...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business-to-Business Middleware (4th)

Mule ESB

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is designed for Business-to-Business Middleware and holds a mindshare of 15.7%, up 12.9% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 19.3% mindshare, down 22.4% since last year.

Business-to-Business Middleware

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

Joshua Rule

Senior Integration Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Comes with real-time integration suite and best security

We use the product in an integrated environment where the client needs a variety of different file transfer protocols as well as an integrated file translation service IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services offers the best security. The product's most valuable feature is the real-time…

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PurbayanSaha

Technology Consultant at Ernst & Young

Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs

There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is extremely scalable."

"IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is a stable and scalable product."

"They have multiple features for each kind of task and issue. The company has different channels to give information to the administration. Security and integration capabilities are also important. This product has helped to replace a lot of other solutions, saving time and cost."

"We are able to monitor all B2B messages, and we are able to see or track each message on it from an error perspective. That's a good side of it. It is working well, and we're able to do our current job."

"They have best-in-class, quality support."

"The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite."

"I'm not using ESB directly. It is the integration layer, so it's running under the hood. However, the conversion and transformation performance is excellent. Anypoint Enterprise Security is also solid."

"The API management capabilities are exemplary. You can apply security policies to most applications, monitor logs, and get analytical data on request reception, response generation time, associated APIs, endpoints, and inbound and outbound messages."

"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."

"The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot."

"Mule ESB is a very easy-to-use and user-friendly solution."

"The solution has a good graphical interface."

"The most powerful feature is DataWeave, which is a powerful language where data can be transformed from one form into another."

"What Mule provides out-of-box is a sufficient product."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"The only weaknesses they have different governance for each task and different channels for communication which are hard to maintain. The relation of the company with other companies can be improved. We have a lot of customers who this platform for the interchange of information which can also be improved. The compliance information about banks can also be updated."

"It can be now classified as a legacy system because there are no more updates. From what I know, there will be no updates for the current version, which is an issue. Therefore, we are looking for a compatible new software that we can use. We're currently researching what is there in the market. We would consider something that would give us better speed on our current processor. There is also room for improvement in terms of its scalability and GUI. It is an old system, and its scalability can be improved. Its GUI can also be more appealing."

"Onboarding on the solution is complex. It's hard to onboard partners and customer suppliers. It's one aspect that is not that straightforward."

"They can improve APIs because they are still lagging behind in API connectivity. With non-API connectivity, they're market leaders, but API connectivity, they're still in the immature space."

"There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration."

"From an improvement perspective, there should be fewer coding challenges for users in Mule ESB."

"I cannot say that installation with Kubernetes needs to be improved to be less tricky, but more information is needed from MuleSoft. They do not help much with Kubernetes, so we should have a person who is well-versed in Kubernetes to handle this."

"Limitation on external subscribers to listen to the messages on the bus."

"There are some features on the commercial version of the solution that would be great if they were on the community version. Additionally, if they added more authorization features it would be helpful."

"Community editions need more attention."

"It needs more samples. Also, the dependency on Maven should be removed."

"The solution isn't as stable as we'd like it to be. There are some ongoing issues and therefore Mule has to provide frequent patches. Mule's core IP should be more stable overall."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a little bit on the higher side because they give you the best support. Out of ten, I would rate pricing at seven or eight."

"The tool is expensive because of its rich features."

"They have a good pricing system, in relation to powerful features."

"This product is cheaper than some offered by other vendors, although there is a problem because you have to pay for some third-party adapters."

"Regarding licensing and pricing, I find it somewhat flexible. They are more flexible with larger customers compared to small and medium ones, as their licensing model depends on ports and other factors. Large customers benefit from more flexibility in implementation and renewal compared to smaller ones."

"The solution is expensive."

"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."

"Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."

"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."

"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."

"I think the price is very high. If you use TIBCO BW, the license is for the CPU usage, then the IPS, and support. I also think the license for the product is a one-time expense."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

The tool is expensive because of its rich features.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services does not have specific issues that need improvement. While each product, like SeeBurger and IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services, has its own advantages and d...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Mule ESB?

The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.

See all answers

Comparisons

webMethods.io vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 17% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 17% of the time

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 12% of the time

OpenText Trading Grid vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 8% of the time

SAP Process Orchestration vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 25% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 13% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Mule ESB

Compared 6% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

July 2025

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services report

Download IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

June 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Overview

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services are designed to alleviate the burden on internal resources by providing secure connectivity and collaboration with your customers, suppliers, and business partners. The solution is built on the cloud-based B2B integration and visibility capabilities of IBM Sterling B2B Collaboration Network and provides comprehensive service offerings for partner onboarding, B2B process management, and trading partner support.

Facilitate growth by rapidly growing and adapting your B2B community without burdening internal resources and capital
Reduce B2B total cost of ownership by reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of B2B operations

Accelerate B2B collaboration with global customers and suppliers by leveraging our B2B expertise.

IBM

For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

June 2025

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