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Layer7 API Management vs MuleSoft API Manager vs TIBCO Cloud API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Layer7 API Management is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Cloud API Management is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ronald D'Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding
I have mainly implemented using Layer 7 API Management. Some of the major challenges we were able to meet with a quick release to market methodology. Some of the tasks which we achieved for our customers were: 1. Translation service from SOAP to REST and vice versa. 2. API service to DB (Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA) -- Created Swagger APIs that were able to perform CRUD operation to the backend API mentioned above and provided routes to query and get data. 3. Integration with Payment gateway service providers to perform (transaction on behalf of the customer with third-party payment gateway service providers white labeled with our APIs ) -- Followed TMF standards for payment gateway integration with the Telcom world. 4. Orchestration of the API. Build multiple microservers and provided orchestration based on route, path, and data in the request and perform actions that would be communicated with multiple APIs and provide a single consolidated response. 5. Provided API-driven security (Oauth 2.0, JWT, SAML, Basic, and a variety of means) to access the API giving the developer the freedom to concentrate only on application/service/microservice and let the gateway handle the threat. 6. Seamless Mutual Authentication allowed good segregation between APIs in the DMZ and internal network.
Dipanjan_Nandi - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable testing stubs and policy enforcement with room for better security and cost management
From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available. Features like monetization and advanced security, which are present in Apigee, are missing. I also want the API Manager to be used as a separate product apart from MuleSoft's other integration solutions. Additionally, the licensing cost is high, and many clients are looking to switch due to this.
Amitava Roy - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers pre-built packages for quick and easy onboarding of APIs but configuration is not that easy
The configuration is not that easy. It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the security layer on top of it, it's not that easy either. There are certain things where the performance is not that great. When the traffic is huge, we see some lag in performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Tech support is fast and responsive."
"The Portal API helps us with deployments. It also helps to have a catalog of everything. The replication is also a critical feature for us. It helps to have a more robust architecture and makes our systems are highly available."
"API discovery using CA Live API Creator is helpful for integrating with multiple backends, for discovering and kickstarting the API creation process. It is a very good feature."
"From a security standpoint, it works great. It is the right solution for us. It's lightweight, a software-appliance configuration which was easy to deploy and configure."
"It impresses me as a product because it never goes down. It always does what it is supposed to do."
"I love the API Gateway, especially the architecture, in terms of the composability of the policies. We approach it from a very software-engineering approach.We build on the policies, like legal blocks, and we deploy them throughout different environments. It's been working out great for us."
"Security is the most important parameter of the solution, for me, because whenever you are exposing your APIs to third-parties, it is critical that the data remains anonymous and that data is retained within the system, that it is not leaked. CA API Management provides good security features."
"A big win for CA was the expertise of the local country support plus having support staff on site in a matter of hours, if required."
"The most effective features of Anypoint API Manager for policy enforcement include security enforcement, rate limiting, client enforcement, traffic control, service level agreement policies, and caching policies."
"It provides all of the robust platform-enabled features."
"I found the authentication features very valuable, like how the tool provides client IDs and secrets and lets you apply authentication policies. We bought the Titanium package with analytics, which allowed us to do rate limiting and throttling. The API monitoring and alerting were also useful."
"The solution has a feature called Flex, which is a low-latency API layer for passthrough APIs where you want data mapping but with very low latency and high scalability."
"Its best feature is that its plugins are somewhat unique in the market. We have budgets, Prime membership, and pre-plugins available in the marketplace that we can use immediately."
"The most important features are the API management and API development."
"The integration process was straightforward."
"The documentation is great; it is always up to date and well-presented."
"The solution is a good general API manager. They have a few propriety features but are offering items that are standard in the industry as well."
"Conversion to RESTful and SOAP protocols and management console (can manage individually throttled settings to manage our service levels for customers)."
"The control that we have and the security features are very valuable. With regard to API implementation or API orchestration, it works very well in the cloud because as soon as you create an API with one click, you can actually expose your APIs."
"We can completely manage the APIs at the org level and BU (business unit) level."
"This has provided a new stream of traffic and exposure of our catalogue beyond the normal web store offering."
"Very few outages or SLA issues."
"It has something called packages. In that way, it's good because we have some pre-built packages. So, if you want to onboard different APIs, we can just add them to the package, and it's there."
"The reason why we selected the solution originally was because of its ability to have a gateway both on-premise and in the cloud. This is the most valuable aspect of the solution for us."
 

Cons

"As well as the SOA Gateway - that is, the API Gateway; we call it the SOA Gateway - we also are now deploying the developer portal component of the SOA Gateway. That has limitations."
"The Portal lacks maturity. Since the move from Portal 3.x to 4.x, a lot of features were removed. It is slowly coming back. I can see a lot of changes are done in the "background" to decouple components and make it more flexible. Those changes are just not getting to the UI side quick enough."
"I understand that clients are often concerned about costs. They might be exploring other options due to the high cost associated with our current package."
"Layer7 API Management could improve by assing more portal-based capabilities."
"One specific feature that we need is the ability to authenticate directly to the server with API data. It's not complex nowadays. This is a feature that we need and CA doesn't have it."
"The implementation of CA API Management was complex. It is a complicated solution. You have to know so much IT knowledge to do the implementation."
"The cloud-native architecture of the product needs improvement."
"It would be nice if we could create APIs directly from Swagger files. We're doing that ourselves with a middle layer. But if you could integrate with open API Swagger specs, and then just create a Swagger and upload it to the gateway and it would create all my API template policy, and would apply the OAuth restrictions, the types of security restrictions I have on there, that would be pretty cool."
"I think that they can bring some transparency in reference to the terms of the microservices architecture."
"The solution could be improved in educational and onboarding areas."
"There should be more pricing options or certain discounts for the education sector."
"The roadmap could include more GenAI use cases integrated into the platform, focusing on various industry verticals."
"The initial setup is very complex."
"It can offer workflows, orchestration, and webhooks."
"The solution's price is high."
"Not many stand-out features."
"Policy management has been a bit of a concern."
"The management console of API and customers' applications are not the most intuitive."
"It lacks many features at the API gateway compared to other solutions."
"It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the security layer on top of it, it's not that easy either."
"The security needs improvement, specifically, propagation of security to an API. Calling other APIs is something that is missing in the product and that makes us think about going to a competitor."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management should improve its installation and make it easy."
"They can fix some stability issues and probably make it more user-friendly so that not only an IT savvy person but an end-user can also easily navigate through this solution."
"I'd like to see TIBCO integrate authentication and security features into Mashery."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CA has great pricing for gateways, so negotiate with your sales team."
"It has a reasonable pricing model by instance."
"Layer7 API Management is cheaper than Apigee."
"Pricing is competitive. CA is ready to offer attractive discounts."
"This solution is a bit more expensive than competitors."
"If you do a TCO of more than five years, then you will see a big jump in costs for some vendors."
"Purchase 4.0 now and wait until they flush out the 4.1 problems."
"The price of Layer7 API Management is too high and should be reduced. However, it is a good solution in the market."
"The product is expensive."
"Pricing can be improved."
"Our customers have a lot of concerns about the increased pricing. The customer feels MuleSoft is very costly, and they are also exploring other integration tools for a lesser price. Maybe we should retain the existing customers by offering some discounts. At least the existing customers can be retained this way. This is regarding the licensing part only because customers based out of North America and Europe have shown many concerns recently. They are a bit concerned about pricing."
"The product is highly priced compared to other advanced software. It is affordable only for tier-one customers."
"When it comes to determining price, the pre-sales team interacts with the customer's primary integration team and the price is negotiated based on the specific usage of the system."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"The price of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is very high."
"I think that it is pretty expensive."
"Its price is pretty reasonable. There are some lightweight API options available in the market, but given the feature set that TIBCO provides, its price is really reasonable."
"We have secured terms on which we have been happy to renew for a number of years."
"Licensing is quite flexible."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Layer7 API Management?
Pricing is more than average. While I am used to Layer7 API Management ( /products/layer7-api-management-reviews ), s...
What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?
Broadcom's push for upgrades from version nine to ten, ten to 10.3, and onwards to twelve needs improvement in migrat...
How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of sof...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy po...
What do you like most about TIBCO Cloud API Management?
The platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token r...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Cloud API Management?
My primary role was to assess the solution from a capability perspective. So, there are some issues with the licensin...
What needs improvement with TIBCO Cloud API Management?
The configuration is not that easy. It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the secu...
 

Also Known As

CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
Anypoint API Manager
Mashery API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
uShip, Sabre, TouchTunes, Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, athenahealth, Coca-Cola Enterprises, CentralIndex.com, Constant Contact, Edmunds.com, FoodEssentials, Getty Images, Klout, Rovi, Rotten Tomatoes, Sportradar, TomTom, ACTIVE.com
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in API Management. Updated: April 2025.
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