IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs Mule ESB comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 4.7% mindshare in E, compared to Salesforce’s 16.5% 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

1,064 Views
734 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 54 Mule ESB reviews

3,829 Views
2,910 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

February 2026

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Helped 881,455 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)

9th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (17th)

Mule ESB

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.7%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 16.5%, down from 21.4% 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	16.5%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	4.7%
Other	78.8%

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.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"We only use the basic features, but the most valuable one for us is the Publish-subscribe pattern."

"Straightforward development and deployment."

"The most valuable feature of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is the ability to facilitate communication with legacy systems, offering a multitude of great capabilities. For example, if there is a mainframe system in place with a web service serving as the front end. In that case, the solution enables efficient protocol transformations to convert all request payloads into a format that the legacy systems can accept, rendering the integration and transformation processes seamless and highly effective."

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

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

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

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"The most beneficial features of Mule ESB are the control plane and runtime plane."

"The most valuable feature of Mule ESB is data transformation, i.e. our interacting with different systems and orchestrating for our business needs."

"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 most valuable feature is the Salesforce integration."

"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."

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

"The most valuable feature is that it's programmer-friendly, so it's very easy to develop APIs."

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

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

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

"It is currently a weighty product."

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

"The installation configuration is quite difficult."

"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."

"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."

"I know that Message Broker was a very tightly copied product with another IBM product, that is, IBM MQ. I would like to have a little bit more decoupling from the IBM MQ because it should not be a prerequisite for IBM WebSphere Message Broker usage."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"There are some issues with both stability and scalability."

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

"The stability could be improved."

"Mule ESB is more into the latest REST APIs, not much into the SOAP web services. Developing is all about web services and not easy with Mule."

"From my perspective, Mule ESB is lightweight, but it can be improved when it comes to the agility of the system."

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

"Lacking some connectors that could be included."

"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."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The solution is expensive."

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

"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 solution is expensive."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

Transportation Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

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	38

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

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Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

IIS vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 10% of the time

IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 7% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 28% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 8% of the time

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs Mule ESB

Compared 3% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

January 2026

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

January 2026

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

February 2026

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

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