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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
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
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
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of Mule ESB is 18.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.4%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Maharsh-Kapadia - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms enterprise integration with comprehensive platform and excellent support
The best features of this solution are that everything we get into a single platform, whether it's integration, API, or data modeling; everything is available in one platform. It's a hybrid, including cloud and on-premise solutions with good connectivity and good connectors. From the benefits of using Mule ESB, we could reduce the manual tasks to 50% in one to two years. The cost is still something we are trying to make lower because we see some advantages when we move from point-to-point integration to API-led connectivity. We have seen a lot of reusable assets, so the cost is reduced. Ultimately, we want to see how it's transformed into business revenue; that's what we are still looking into.
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

"The connectivity the solution provides is excellent. There are often too many systems that we have to integrate and this helps with that."
"The API management capabilities are exemplary. You can apply security policies to most applications, monitor logs, and get analytical data on request reception, response generation time, associated APIs, endpoints, and inbound and outbound messages."
"The product offers a community edition that is free of cost."
"The most valuable feature of Mule ESB is data transformation, i.e. our interacting with different systems and orchestrating for our business needs."
"It was pretty fast to develop APIs on this platform, which is something I liked about it. So, the time to value was pretty good."
"The solution improved my company by modernizing the way we offer services and improving the user experience."
"The solution offers multiple deployment options."
"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 solution basically conforms to our standards."
"The stability is excellent."
"Currently, I find the configuration part quite valuable, where you can easily configure things."
"In my opinion, the most valuable aspect of this solution is its extensive range of adaptors and connectors. This feature holds significant importance and provides great value to users."
"The productivity is the most valuable feature. It is very easy to write remediations."
"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."
"The solution has two main parts: integration and transformation. It's very user-friendly and easy to understand for everyone."
 

Cons

"From my perspective, Mule ESB is lightweight, but it can be improved when it comes to the agility of the system."
"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."
"The price of Mule ESB could improve."
"I would like to see support for BPM in the next release of this solution."
"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."
"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."
"The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"The server is very specific and it is very difficult to get experience with it."
"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."
"I would like to see better documentation for the open-source version."
"WSO2 libraries are not mature enough. For example, if you want to integrate with Kafka using its Kafka library, it often has many bugs."
"The administration side is complex and could use significant improvements to enhance the solution's functionality."
"The integration capabilities need to be improved."
"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

"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."
"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."
"The pricing must be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The solution costs about 20,000 or 30,000 euros per year, per instance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
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?
Something that could be improved in WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is that the problem is not a lack of capability or functionalities. The problem is that it is a very complex environment. To put your ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
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Find out what your peers are saying about Mule ESB vs. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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