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 14.7% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #2 in E , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 17.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...

Read 9 IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services reviews

1,564 Views
1,251 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 52 Mule ESB reviews

3,848 Views
2,886 Comparison Views

87% 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, IBM, SAP and others in Business-to-Business Middleware.

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Business-to-Business Middleware

October 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

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

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 14.7%, up 13.9% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 17.0% mindshare, down 21.9% since last year.

Business-to-Business Middleware Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services	14.7%
webMethods.io	10.8%
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	10.1%
Other	64.4%

Business-to-Business Middleware

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Mule ESB	17.0%
IBM Integration Bus	19.4%
webMethods.io	10.7%
Other	52.900000000000006%

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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Maharsh-Kapadia

Enterprise Integration Architect at Tata Consultancy

Transforms enterprise integration with comprehensive platform and excellent support

The best features of this solution are that everything we get into a single platform, whether it's integration, API, or data modeling; everything is available in one platform. It's a hybrid, including cloud and on-premise solutions with good connectivity and good connectors. From the benefits of using Mule ESB, we could reduce the manual tasks to 50% in one to two years. The cost is still something we are trying to make lower because we see some advantages when we move from point-to-point integration to API-led connectivity. We have seen a lot of reusable assets, so the cost is reduced. Ultimately, we want to see how it's transformed into business revenue; that's what we are still looking into.

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

"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."

"The solution is extremely scalable."

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

"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."

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

"The most valuable features of Mule ESB are its ease of use, documentation, ease to adapt to newer security and vulnerabilities, and a lot of help available. Additionally, there is a lot of flexibility, many patches available, and they provide APIs. They are a market standard."

"Everything runs in Java, which is a useful feature."

"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 solution offers multiple deployment options."

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

"Mule ESB has a user-friendly design, and everything is in one place. The API and architecture are popular right now. Also, MuleSoft has a large and supportive online community."

"The solution improved my company by modernizing the way we offer services and improving the user experience."

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

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"It would be beneficial if users could navigate the UI easily without extensive training or learning curves."

"It should have some amount of logging."

"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."

"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."

"MuleSoft isn't as mature as some other integration technologies out there like IBM WebSphere. There's room for growth, and MuleSoft is working toward that."

"In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the generator for the DataWeave language so that it's a little more graphic."

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."

"You will not get any support from Mule ESB's team for the tool's community edition...You can get support with the licensed version of Mule ESB."

"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."

"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."

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

"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."

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

"The solution is expensive."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Media Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	36

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 25% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 12% 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 7% of the time

SAP Process Orchestration vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 19% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 13% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 8% 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

October 2025

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services report

Download IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

October 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

October 2025

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