IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs webMethods.io comparison

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and webMethods.io are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM WebSphere Message Broker is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while webMethods.io is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.9. IBM WebSphere Message Broker holds a 4.1% mindshare in E, compared to webMethods.io’s 11.1% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM WebSphere Message Broker users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of webMethods.io users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

943 Views
707 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

webMethods.io

Read 93 webMethods.io reviews

9,290 Views
1,672 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

webMethods.io

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and webMethods.io compete in the integration space. webMethods.io seems to have the upper hand due to its modern features and flexibility, particularly in cloud environments.

Features: IBM WebSphere Message Broker is recognized for its secure communication protocols, scalability, and robust message processing capabilities. webMethods.io offers dynamic integration capabilities, easy-to-use APIs, and extensive cloud support, making it ideal for businesses integrating cloud applications.

Room for Improvement: IBM WebSphere Message Broker could benefit from a more streamlined deployment process and reduced complexity in setup. Enhancing cloud compatibility may also be advantageous. webMethods.io could improve by expanding support for legacy systems and offering more robust documentation. Integration with non-standard protocols could also be enhanced.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM WebSphere Message Broker requires more traditional deployment methods, which can be complex and time-consuming but offers deep and prompt customer support. webMethods.io, being cloud-native, allows a streamlined and efficient deployment process with customer service known for swift issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: IBM WebSphere Message Broker has a high initial cost but is designed for long-term value in large-scale implementations. webMethods.io offers a flexible pricing model with lower initial costs, attractive to small and medium businesses, and provides quick ROI through its agile deployment model.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. webMethods.io Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. webMethods.io

September 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 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)

webMethods.io

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business-to-Business Middleware (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (9th), API Management (11th), Cloud Data Integration (8th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.1%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 11.1%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
webMethods.io	11.1%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	4.1%
Other	84.8%

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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MohanPrasad

Senior Consultant at Brillio

Smooth integration and enhanced deployment with high licensing cost

webMethods.io was used to integrate APIs through the webMethods.io platform, trigger database events, and connect backend APIs through a Java backend. It was used extensively for integration purposes in my organization Integration became smoother, troubleshooting was easier, and deployment and…

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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

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

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

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

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

"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."

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

"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."

"The solution has good integration."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"Given that you have one integration API in place, it takes very minimal effort to scale it to any other application that might want to use the same. Its flow-based development environment is a breeze and makes it really easy to re-use most of the existing components and build up a new API."

"The Software AG Designer has been great. It's very intuitive."

"Our use case is for integration factory for SAP. It is mostly for SAP integration."

"Segregation of deployment for the environments is the most valuable feature of the solution."

"It frankly fills the gap between IT and business by having approval and policy enforcement on each state and cycle of the asset from the moment it gets created until it is retired."

"Ease of implementation and flexibility to hold the business logic are the most valuable features."

"I would say the core Web-based integrations work the best. They are the most efficient and robust implementations one can do with webMethods."

"The tool supports gRPC."

More webMethods.io pros

Cons

"It is currently a weighty product."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"There is some lag in the GUI. There have been some performance issues and maybe it's because of the application data."

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"On the monitoring side of things, the UI for monitoring could be improved. It's a bit cumbersome to work with."

"The improvement needed is related to the model's position. As of now, it seems to be more of a conceptual idea rather than a widely implemented solution. For how long"

"They should develop clear visibility for the onboarding."

"I would like the solution to provide bi-weekly updates."

"Some things could be improved, especially how ActiveTransfer handles third-party file transfers. It would be nice to have a native file-watching mechanism for when you're scheduling jobs with a third-party scheduler. Currently, we are using an outside file watcher solution to check the files before the file transfer. It checks the location to see if the file is there. If the file is there, it will prepare it for transfer. If the file isn't available, it will send an email it can create a ticket send it now. We recommended adding this file watcher mechanism."

"Documentation needs tuning. There is a lot of dependency with SoftwareAG. Even with the documentation at hand, you can struggle to implement scenarios without SAG’s help. By contrast, IBM’s documentation is self-explanatory, in my opinion."

"webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience."

"The UI for the admin console is very old. It hasn't been updated for years and is pretty much the same one that we started with. This is something that could be refreshed and made more modern."

More webMethods.io cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"This product is more expensive than competing products."

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

"Currently, the licensing solution for this product is pretty straightforward. The way that Software AG has moved in their licensing agreements is very understandable. It is very easy for you to see where things land. Like most vendors today, they are transaction based. Therefore, just having a good understanding of how many transactions that you are doing a year would be very wise. Luckily, there are opportunities to work with the vendor to get a good understanding of how many transactions you have and what is the right limit for you to fall under."

"The price is high and I give it a five out of ten."

"Sometimes we don't have a very clear idea what the licensing will entail at first, because it can be very customizable. On one hand, this can be a good thing, because it can be tailored to a specific customer's needs. But on the other hand it can also be an issue when some customer asks, "What's the cost?" and we can't yet give them an accurate answer."

"There are no hidden costs in addition to the standard licensing fees for webMethods. For corporate organizations, it's a very cheap or fairly priced product, but for growing or small businesses, it's quite expensive. These businesses would probably need to consider an enterprise services bus at some point. Thus, from a pricing point, it closes out non-cooperate businesses."

"I do think webMethods is coming under increasing pressure when it comes to their price-to-feature value proposition. It's probably the single biggest strategic risk they have. They're very expensive in their industry. They've been raising the price recently, especially when compared with their competitors."

"The pricing is a yearly license."

"It is an expensive tool. I rate the product price a nine out of ten, where ten means it is very expensive."

"I am not involved in the licensing side of things."

More webMethods.io pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Retailer

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	11
Large Enterprise	63

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

What do you like most about Built.io Flow?

The tool helps us to streamline data integration. Its BPM is very strong and powerful. The solution helps us manage digital transformation.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Built.io Flow?

webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Built.io Flow?

webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience.

See all answers

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Boomi iPaaS vs webMethods.io

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

September 2025

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

webMethods.io

August 2025

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Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

Built.io Flow, webMethods Integration Server, webMethods Trading Networks, webMethods ActiveTransfer, webMethods.io API

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

webMethods.io Integration is a powerful integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that provides a combination of capabilities offered by ESBs, data integration systems, API management tools, and B2B gateways.

IBM

Sample Customers

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

Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. webMethods.io

September 2025

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. webMethods.io

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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