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 7.0, and holds a 13.4% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #2 in E , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 15.4% 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

1,531 Views
1,271 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 54 Mule ESB reviews

3,649 Views
2,700 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, Informatica and others in Business-to-Business Middleware.

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Business-to-Business Middleware

December 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

5.7

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 13.4%, down 14.6% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 15.4% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.

Business-to-Business Middleware Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services	13.4%
webMethods.io	10.1%
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	9.8%
Other	66.7%

Business-to-Business Middleware

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Mule ESB	15.4%
IBM Integration Bus	17.7%
webMethods.io	10.5%
Other	56.4%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

Ravikumar Tanvee

Seeburger Lead EDI Developer/Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Effective business process handling with some room for improvement in mapping ease and user interactions

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 disadvantages, I do not see any challenges or improvements needed. Although, mapping might be a bit easier in SeeBurger compared to IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services.

Read full review

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Integration architecture has enabled reliable multi-channel messaging and secure API management but now needs better analytics and simpler development

In my opinion, the real-time analytics part of Mule ESB is not up to the mark for the decision-making process. While there are some analytics features, they lack the standards needed for enterprise use. Compared to other analytics tools such as Power BI, MuleSoft falls short.Points for improvement in Mule ESB definitely include enhancing the analytics capabilities because currently, they rely on external logging tools such as Splunk or ELK, which is lagging behind compared to other tools such as Workato that offer more analytical features. Additionally, issues arise with AI-based use cases due to dependencies on Salesforce tools such as agent force, making development more complicated when it should be more independent. Developing AI-based agents without being tied to Salesforce applications could also enhance functionality.

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

"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."

"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."

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

"The solution is extremely scalable."

"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."

"It's open source, and there are a lot of community resources. Mule ESB makes it easy to connect to other software applications."

"The most valuable feature is the Salesforce integration."

"The connectivity the solution provides is excellent. There are often too many systems that we have to integrate and this helps with that."

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

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

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

"Mule Expression Language"

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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."

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

"The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster."

"In my opinion, the real-time analytics part of Mule ESB is not up to the mark for the decision-making process."

"Mule ESB could be more user-friendly. I think users must learn about the architecture before they start coding. The price could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an EDIFACT integration."

"In an upcoming release, I would like to see more additional concept for exception handling, batch processing, and increased integration with other application."

"The stability could be improved."

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

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."

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

"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."

"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."

"Mule ESB is a costly solution. We pay approximately $80,000 annually for the system. The cost of the number of instances, annual subscription, and cloud hosting services are expensive."

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

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

"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

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	38

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

My primary use case is using IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services ( /products/ibm-sterling-b2b-integration-services-reviews ) for business process modeling and mapping tasks. These tasks are simil...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

I would rate IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services a seven. The main reason for this rating is that SeeBurger is much easier to handle compared to IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services. Features li...

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 22% of the time

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 14% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 11% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Process Orchestration vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 7% 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

December 2025

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services report

Download IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

December 2025

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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

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December 2025

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