IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs Mule ESB comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 4.4% mindshare in E, compared to Salesforce’s 18.7% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

980 Views
764 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 52 Mule ESB reviews

4,192 Views
3,102 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and Mule ESB are both formidable players in the integration platform space, catering to enterprise-level needs. IBM WebSphere Message Broker stands out due to its robust enterprise features, making it ideal for enterprises needing structured processes. Mule ESB, with its agile development environment and open-source adaptability, offers a quicker deployment, advantageous for rapid cloud-based integration.

Features: IBM WebSphere Message Broker provides advanced message routing, sophisticated data transformation, and a range of enterprise protocol support. Mule ESB is valued for its lightweight integration, ease of use, and high scalability, fitting for both cloud and on-premises deployments.

Room for Improvement: IBM WebSphere Message Broker can benefit from enhanced support for modern agile practices and more simplified deployment options. Mule ESB may improve by optimizing the user interface for better complex project management, expanding enterprise-grade feature sets, and offering deeper integration with legacy systems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM WebSphere Message Broker offers a more thorough and structured deployment model, backed by a robust customer service network suitable for large enterprises. In contrast, Mule ESB showcases a simpler, faster deployment process with strong community support, making it a go-to for agile environments.

Pricing and ROI: IBM WebSphere Message Broker presents a higher initial setup cost, justifiable by its comprehensive enterprise features, contributing to significant ROI over time. Mule ESB appeals to organizations seeking a cost-effective solution with lower initial setup costs, achieving quick ROI via agile iterative development.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 866,286 peers since 2012

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 WebSphere Message Broker

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (16th)

Mule ESB

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.4%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 18.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Mule ESB	18.7%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	4.4%
Other	76.9%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

BrajendraKumar

Technical Architect at HCL Technologies

Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability

I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

Read full review

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

"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."

"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."

"The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable."

"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"

"It's reliable for our day-to-day operations, ensuring fast and secure data integration across different systems."

"Integration and mapping are easy, which is a major advantage."

"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."

"It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"For complex cases, we employ the SSLi engine, whereas for simpler ones like healthcare or response data, such as EDI 270 or 271. We prefer to use an external XRT engine instead of handling it within the ESB for ease of management."

"We can use Java expressions anywhere in the flow."

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

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

"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 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."

"The connectors help to connect with a variety of applications."

"It is easily deployable and manageable. It has microservices-based architecture, which means that you can deploy the solution based on your needs, and you can manage the solution very easily."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"Technical support is very slow and needs to be improved."

"The solution can add container engines such as docker."

"The product's features are not being upgraded or enhanced by the vendor"

"It is currently a weighty product."

"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."

"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."

"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordingly."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"In India, particularly in the banking sector, clients do not prefer cloud solutions due to regulatory and compliance requirements."

"Improvements could be made in performance."

"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."

"One area that could be improved is the way that policies are propagated when APIs are moved from one environment to another. It's an issue, but when you develop and test the rest APIs in a lower environment and need to move them, there's a propagation process. This process moves certain aspects of the APIs, like the basic features. But when we move them, the policies don't always move with them. The policies should be able to move so we don't have to redo them manually. There are some APIs we use, but it's a bit tedious."

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

"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."

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

"In order to meet the new trend of active metadata management, we need intelligent APIs that can retrieve new data designs and trigger actions over new findings without human intervention."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"This product is more expensive than competing products."

"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."

"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."

"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."

"The solution is expensive."

"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."

"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"

"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."

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

"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."

"The pricing must be improved."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Large Enterprise	10

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.

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

IBM Integration Bus vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 50% of the time

webMethods.io vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 16% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 12% of the time

IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 12% of the time

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 12% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB

Compared 8% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

August 2025

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

August 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

No data available

Overview

WebSphere Message Broker is an enterprise service bus (ESB) providing connectivity and universal data transformation for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and non-SOA environments. It allows businesses of any size to eliminate point-to-point connections and batch processing regardless of platform, protocol or data format.

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

WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

July 2025

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB report.

See our list of best Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) vendors.

We monitor all Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.