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Mule ESB vs WSO2 Enterprise Integrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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

Mule ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WSO2 Enterprise Integrator
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (31st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of Mule ESB is 20.1%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.2%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

PurbayanSaha - PeerSpot reviewer
Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs
There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Decreases the development timeframe and costs
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for easy integration with third-party systems. Often, customers decide to develop using open-source tools like Spring Boot if there aren't many connectors required to avoid increasing costs. They'll develop this way and then deploy using APIM, the bare minimum needed. It is mainly required for very complicated setups with many connectors. In the implementations I've seen, people often used open-source tools because there weren't many third-party systems involved—just their organization's own systems. From WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, I expect them to bring up more and more connectors in the future. That's the main expectation. Having more connectors in various areas will help us when discussing new requirements. I don't have any specific use case right now, so I can't name a particular connector. But, as new technologies emerge, the relevant connectors should be there for those. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator mainly helps with the integration part, which can be simplified only if you have relevant connectors for whatever you're doing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier."
"The solution improved my company by modernizing the way we offer services and improving the user experience."
"The architecture based on events has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company."
"It is one of the best integration tools in the market."
"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 connectors help to connect with a variety of applications."
"We can use Java expressions anywhere in the flow."
"The most valuable feature is the Salesforce integration."
"The customer service executives are very responsive."
"The solution's technical support is very knowledgeable."
"The solution basically conforms to our standards."
"The solution has two main parts: integration and transformation. It's very user-friendly and easy to understand for everyone."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"It's a very complete product. It allows us to network security and add more layers of security to the system."
"It's a consolidated product. It works and it does its job pretty well."
"The stability is excellent."
 

Cons

"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."
"Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."
"From the product perspective, it was sometimes hard to manage the dependencies. When we had to add dependencies on a couple of different packages, it was sometimes confusing. It was hard to update them with Anypoint Studio, as well as with MuleSoft. There were challenges with that. So, that's one of the areas that could be improved."
"We would like the ability to use our own code. This would allow us to develop customizations with ease. Additionally, it would be nice to have more analytics or insights on the exchanged information between databases."
"It would be beneficial if users could navigate the UI easily without extensive training or learning curves."
"The initial setup could be more straightforward."
"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."
"There are some features on the commercial version of the solution that would be great if they were on the community version. Additionally, if they added more authorization features it would be helpful."
"In my opinion, the administration model and interface, of Carbon, are lacking in terms of its features and user experience."
"If I have to buy software, then it becomes expensive for me."
"I would like to see them bring back a feature, from earlier versions, that was very useful in debugging and finding issues."
"The customization can be a bit difficult."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"You cannot include the validation of XPath."
"One of the reasons that we are looking for a replacement is their way of defining integration. The language of the XML structures that I use to describe the integrations are not that standard, and it's not easy to find people who are familiar with this approach."
"The setup can be difficult for those not familiar with the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."
"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
"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."
"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."
"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."
"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 solution is expensive."
"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 pricing of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator for enterprise subscriptions can be considered expensive, especially from the perspective of someone who prefers open-source software."
"It is a low-cost solution."
"The cost is better than IBM Cloud Pak."
"The open-source, unsupported version is available free of charge."
"The solution costs about 20,000 or 30,000 euros per year, per instance."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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...
What do you like most about Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
What do you like most about WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The product has reasonable and competitive pricing for enterprise customers. It is expensive for small businesses especially. They are using the open-source solution, and they find it expensive sin...
What needs improvement with WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for e...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
West
Find out what your peers are saying about Mule ESB vs. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.