IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

IBM and Zend are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. IBM is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zend is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 2.1% mindshare in AIS, compared to Zend’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

971 Views
340 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Zend PHP Engine

Read 11 Zend PHP Engine reviews

496 Views
496 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Zend PHP Engine

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Zend PHP Engine and IBM WebSphere Message Broker compete in the web application development and enterprise integration domains. Zend PHP Engine offers a cost-effective solution and efficient PHP application development, while IBM WebSphere Message Broker is unmatched in its comprehensive middleware capabilities and enterprise integration features, justifying its higher price point.

Features: Zend PHP Engine supports seamless PHP execution, robust database integration, and advanced performance optimization. IBM WebSphere Message Broker provides extensive connectivity options, sophisticated message routing, and transformation features, and it integrates smoothly with legacy systems.

Room for Improvement: Zend PHP Engine could enhance its scalability features and broaden its support for more complex enterprise-level tasks. Improving documentation quality and user interface might benefit its users. IBM WebSphere Message Broker could work on simplifying its deployment process, improving cost efficiency, and reducing setup complexity for smaller organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zend PHP Engine is appreciated for its straightforward setup, making it particularly accessible for smaller teams and developers, along with having responsive customer support. IBM WebSphere Message Broker requires a more intricate deployment process, supported by comprehensive professional services and detailed documentation suitable for large-scale enterprise implementations.

Pricing and ROI: Zend PHP Engine offers an affordable alternative with a rapid ROI for PHP development environments. IBM WebSphere Message Broker's pricing reflects its robust and versatile enterprise capabilities, providing long-term value despite a higher initial investment.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Zend PHP Engine Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Zend PHP Engine

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 WebSphere Message Broker

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

17th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (9th)

Zend PHP Engine

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zend PHP Engine	1.7%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	2.1%
Other	96.2%

Application Infrastructure

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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SatyendraGupta

External Consultant (Digital Tool Developer and Intervention Specialist) at IQVIA

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature. A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it. I have been Zend PHP Engine for nine years. Multiple people are using the solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.…

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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

"The solution has good integration."

"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."

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

"Straightforward development and deployment."

"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."

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

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

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the speed at which it compiles and sends the dynamic cache."

"The Zend Framework provides an easy, open source way to produce coding based on the needs of our customers."

"Zend Engine gives the flexibility to use external modules to easily expand the functionalities you need for your web project."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

"It offers good support for various types of classes, along with many open source libraries that we can readily utilize in our application development process. This gives us a lot of options when it comes to custom development solutions, without having to worry about licensing or other programming-related issues."

"Offers a complete environment to develop PHP applications. It is valuable because it allows you to have a complete stack (PHP, MySQL, Zend Server) enabling the building of a development environment, and to deploy to the production system."

"Scaling up is an important factor for large projects, and with PHP 7 and its performance improvements, this becomes even easier."

"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."

More Zend PHP Engine pros

Cons

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

"It is currently a weighty product."

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

"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."

"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."

"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."

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features."

"In terms of improvement, it doesn't support concurrent processing. When we want to process anything on a concurrent basis, we have to divide it into a number of things, like a queue, or we have to run it using Cron jobs. We would like to have the capability to run any thread or process in parallel."

"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."

"The biggest problem with PHP is you have to write lot of conditions or have to use a framework."

"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."

"The main area that Zend needs to improve is to support asynchronous programming tasks, which is facilitated in PHP 7, but not at the same degree as HHVM."

"The solution can be quicker."

"Its object oriented programming language needs improvement."

More Zend PHP Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

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

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

"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"

"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."

"No problem with pricing and licensing, as tools are open source. You have to consider training cost, mindset setup cost, as part of the TCO."

"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."

"Its pricing depends on the number of users."

"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."

"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

Transportation Company

No data available

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	9
Large Enterprise	2

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 Zend PHP Engine?

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zend PHP Engine?

PHP is an open-source solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?

Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.

See all answers

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 58% of the time

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Compared 42% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

January 2026

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

January 2026

Download Zend PHP Engine product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

PHP Engine

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

The Zend PHP Engine is designed to optimize PHP code and improve performance, making it a popular choice for web developers. It is easy to use, stable, does not require a lot of code, is open source, and only requires payment for server costs. The initial setup is straightforward, and there is no real need to set up the solution because it's built into the deployment.

Zend

Sample Customers

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

Cisco

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Zend PHP Engine

December 2025

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Zend PHP Engine

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