MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager Reviews

We primarily use the solution for API management.

Their gateway is great. They have a pay manager gateway which I find very interesting. 

We like their API manager.

Their RTF, runtime fabric, is very useful.

The stability overall has been pretty great.

We didn't have any issues with the initial setup.

Technical support has been very helpful.

Their ability to observe is good.

Some items are not ideal. For example, they should for sales management, they need better performance in the core processing.

The IO blocking isn't ideal.

We find that the enterprise level is lacking scalability.

We have some hundred Linux boxes and 400 or so APIs and for scaling, we are facing challenges. However, we haven't yet compared it to other ESBs, and therefore it's possible that all ESBs are limited in the same way.

They're in the process of evolving right now. There are many changes on the horizon that may prove to be interesting. For example, we've implemented CI/CD and now it's my understanding that the graph scale's also coming. 

I've been using the solution for four years.

The stability of the solution is pretty good. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The scalability is lacking. We're not sure if it's just this solution or ESBs in general, however, we've had trouble scaling as we need to.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently. They are mostly tech leads, senior developers, and architects.

Technical support has been great. If you raise a ticket, then they respond on the basis of the severity of the issue, the criticality of the issue. They attend to the call really quickly. We've been happy with the level of support on offer.

The initial setup is very straightforward. We didn't have any issues at all. It's simple and easy to implement and not overly complex.

We have 30 to 50 people that comprise a support team that can help handle any maintenance issues. 

We did have assistance from MuleSoft support.

I don't have any visibility on the licensing and therefore cannot speak to the exact cost of the product.

We are working with a platinum tier and have an unlimited core. It's my understanding is that there are no additional costs beyond the licensing fee itself. 

We've gone live with MuleSoft and I have been comparing it with TIBCO or Dell and IBM products. If it's threat management that can be done concurrently across platforms, maybe it can be performed better. However, I've heard TIBCO is not evolving at this time.

I was exploring other options for my own knowledge and understanding as I am looking for a job change. People not only use Mulesoft, and companies want to have knowledge in two to three platforms. I'm just comparing Mulesoft with IBM ESB, Oracle, and a few other products. 

We're just a customer and an end-user.

Previously, a Mulesoft community edition was available. We started using Mulesoft's community version. We were exploring some ESB in our organization four years back. We started using MuleSoft as we've got Salesforce. At that time, Mulesoft was not yet acquired by Salesforce and that's why we went with the community edition. It was good. It was free. Then, slowly, we purchased some courses and Mulesoft was more connected to Salesforce. Now also Salesforce is there and AWS is there and it's more well-known and integrated. We thought it would help us due to its growth.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's a product that's still evolving. 

We could employ it for tasks like access control and other minor functions like controlling licenses using an API gateway alongside SS rules.

It is a good management tool for controlling purposes.

Since most components are situated in the cloud, there's one particular hosted in the cloud. This presents a considerable challenge. While all other components are implemented on-premises, this specific one isn't permitted to be hosted in the cloud as per customer requirements. Shifting this component to an on-premises environment requires a significant effort. 

I have been using MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for more than two years.

It is a stable product. 

Regarding scalability, I have some uncertainty. During our interaction with the vendor, they introduced us to the possibility of running MuleSoft within a Kubernetes environment. If we can leverage this approach, it could potentially enhance scalability. However, during the testing phase, I found that the implementation process was rather complex.

I would rate the scalability seven out of ten.

The support is satisfactory.

Neutral

It is complicated. I would rate it three out of ten. We collaborated with professional service experts based in Hong Kong. When delving into the architectural aspects, it became apparent that the setup was intricate. Consequently, we relied on their assistance for both the installation process and the architectural design. The project itself extended over a considerable duration, not solely due to its length but also because it involved multiple components.

It is extremely high, and I would rate it one out of ten.

Personally, I find this to be a satisfactory option. I would rate the product seven out of ten.

We are using the solution to move away from a point-to-point integration to a more managed API platform while doing analytics to monetize the API. We use the solution daily.

When doing point-to-point integration, you would need to set up the VPN and Exchange, but it is now easy because once you define an API, you can quickly expose it to third parties. Since you do not need to redo the work, the time to market is faster. In terms of analytics, you can read the traffic rating and even the monetization.

The auto-creation of the API documentation is useful. I used RAML for that, and it made creating API catalogs easier. The solution automatically creates API documentation based on how you define it.

The solution is missing a monetization module. One of our key use cases is engaging with third parties, so the solution has a disadvantage because you are forced to enter a contract with another third party just for billing.

Moreover, there are readily-available connectors, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, but you will have to pay for that. In that way, the solution might get expensive. These connectors should be easily accessible from the marketplace once you have access to the platform, rather than them reselling other products to you. It now defeats the whole purpose of quickly integrating a finance platform without further costs, and you are then forced to redo an already available connector if the budget does not allow you to purchase that connector.

We are still in the initial stages but have been developing APIs on MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for roughly three to four months.

I rate the stability a ten out of ten because there have not been any issues so far. I am confident we can add more APIs.

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. We have 20 developers at our organization using the solution, and we hope to increase that number because we are roping in other developers from our SPUs to onboard them onto the platform.

The vendor trained us and offered support beyond the contract, so I rate their after-sales support positively.

Positive

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. It is straightforward, and deploying the solution took a week or two.

MuleSoft technicians trained and then assessed us on the solution as a part of the deployment process. The solution architect then monitored us until we could deploy the solution on our own. There were some APIs that they deployed themselves, and we started onboarding our own APIs once we were ready to do so.

During deployment, we required one person for the networks and one for the connectivity, and we also needed a solution architect. We had one person designing the architecture and one for development.

We only need one developer/administrator for maintenance, but maintenance is not an issue if you are used to the solution.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten since it is expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing costs.

The solution is highly rated and is in the top three in Gartner Reports, and I highly recommend it. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for integration purposes. 

The solution offers good policies. We have all the policies available via drag and drop. It made it very easy.

I don't have any notes for improvements. I'm happy with it. 

I'd like more monitoring and analyzing features included in the future. It would be helpful to have a dashboard with monitoring and health check visible to users. 

I've used the solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. I'd rate it ten out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

I'd rate the scalability ten out of ten. It is easy to extend. We have multiple users on the solution. We have around 100 users so far. 

I don't have any experience with technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

I've also used Apigee, IBM API Connect, and Kong Enterprise. They are pretty new for me. I've used Apigee and IBM for a couple of weeks. I did not use a different solution previously.

The solution is pretty easy to set up. I'd rate the ease of setup ten out of ten. That said, I was not involved in the initial deployment directly.

I'm not sure about the solution's pricing. 

Currently, I'm evaluating the difference between this solution and Apigee, IBM API Connect, and Kong Enterprise.

I'm a customer and end-user. 

This is a very useful product. However, it is involved, and you do have to learn a few things to use it effectively. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Our primary use case for this solution is for infestation and backend services. It is also a gateway. We use it heavily because Azure offers better pricing than its competitors. 

In addition, we use MuleSoft to run APIs. 

I can explain how this solution helped our organization through an example. Let's say, I want to buy my home insurance. I'd go to the market for the digital product and get a quote. Upon accepting the offer, I'll go through payment and then a three-step process for binding. After that, documents will be released to me in a multi-step process. MuleSoft provides a lot of the visualization and you are able to do the mapping and confirmations. It powers some of the connectors out of the box and you're able to connect to the different endpoints. You do not need to write many core basis and this is a great advantage.

The most valuable features of this solution are the Acura Station and the API Gateway.

The cost model could be improved.

I have been using this solution for around two years now.

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the pricing model of this solution a four, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the most expensive and 10 being the best pricing.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We primarily use the solution for our APIs. We are moving from monoliths to API architecture and we have approximately 10,000 to 12,000 APIs across banks, which are hosted on this product. It also provides us a gateway service to ingress the traffic as well as whole policy management where stuff is taken care of from the PC Any Point. It also has some API-level runtime policy management, which we use.

The gateway service to ingress the traffic is great. 

The whole policy management has been great. 

It has some API-level runtime policy management, which is useful for us.

The solution is extremely mature.

You can scale the solution.

The only drawback is that, due to the fact that we are going into a completely API structured way of working, it is very tightly coupled with the vendor solutions. For example, the run times. What happens is when you have to do a change or you have to do anything, you have to rip off all the APIs and rebuild it.

If you see the features, they are really good in one sense, however, they have a certain drawback when you get into the operational way of working. We definitely need APIs to have policies at runtime. They provide a feature where there's a lot of policy on authorizations, however, the only problem is the runtime. 

When the runtime upgrades, we have to basically publish a new build pack and then do all the rebundling. When we were 2000, 3000 APIs, it was okay. However, when you start going up to 10,000 to 12,000 APIs, it was too much.

The whole cost is an issue. Deploying to production is not a very easy job in that bank as we go through the whole change process. The whole tight coupling of the product is a problem. 

As a bank, we didn't want to take any risk of getting so much tightly coupled with any vendor product. It should be replaceable as required. That's the only reason we are now changing products.

The upgrade is a very messy process. Mule 3.X to 4 or 4.2 requires you have to rewrite the APIs. It is not just upgrading the build pack with a runtime. That is something that gets us scared a lot. They came back and told us when we move to four run times we had to upgrade. You had to rewrite the APIs. The APIs cannot just work in a straightforward manner. There is a lot of change and we have approximately 5% Mule APIs and then the rest are boot APIs. While, now, that means 5,000 APIs need rewiring, after two years, we might have 20,000 APIs. They should have a proper way of having backward compatibility.

The initial setup is complex. 

If they are going with that control pane in a cloud, which is a very good feature and it is a managed service, they should give it 24/7, 100% uptime. They should also spin it across multiple regions. Currently, they are just the US and the EU is coming up. However, they should add, for example, China or Asia, et cetera. We operate in more than nearly 40 countries. Every country has a lot of its own governance and compliance and regulatory checks or some, where we cannot host to the cloud.

We have used the solution for three and a half to four years at this point.

We have a massive set up and definitely, there are sometimes a few issues, which come here and there, however, we manage to build a resiliency inside that.

We have scaled from a few hundred APIs to 10,000 APIs. Just on the retail part, the gateway service runs more than 125 million transactions per day. It's a huge setup we have. 

The only drawback back again is that their gateways are pretty heavy on hardware. Therefore, we spend a lot of money on the hardware. If you compare with Kong, Kong actually can just replace everything with two VMs. We have 500 VMs running for us as gateways. It has scalability, however, it will cost you, which is a problem.

Technical support has been helpful. There were also people embedded in my team.

We are migrating from Mule to Kong now. We just have signed the contracts and we are basically getting the thing set up. It is a big project and it is going to take maybe another three to four months to roll it out to non-production and maybe another five months into production as we need to get everything in compliance and clear.

The initial setup, if you go back three or three and a half years, definitely, for us, was complex. As a bank, we run through a lot of securities. Since then, they have matured the process. They worked with us, to do some upgrades. Kong also will have to do a few things for us, once we migrate. Currently, we are already finding some issues, which Kong is trying to help us and fix it. However, Mule took a bit of time to set up. If we were to do it now, it would be easy. 

They have come up with API management and cloud hub, which is the manual service. We have not used it much, however, there are some use cases from a different part of the bank that tried it out. It's a good option as you get rid of the whole operational management side of the whole control pane. The control pane we are running is a PC 1.7.3 or something, which is old and coming up on the end of support.

The cloud hub may solve the problem of the control pane, even though they have some issues with the maintenance windows and stuff. Due to the fact that the policies are cast in the control pane, and run times can struggle, if the control pane goes down or needs maintenance because we need a hundred percent of availability in some way or other, it needs to be resilient also. The maintenance windows can cause trouble for us in banking.

We originally signed a three-year licensing agreement.

There's room for improvement on the licensing. They could do better.

I'm not sure I would recommend the solution to everyone. The approach we have taken is, we have moved out completely from the Mule APIs to Spring Boot APIs. We will decouple the whole vendor locking and stuff. However, it depends on the use case for each company. There is no good and bad product. These guys are both very mature products. Depending upon the use case, you will have to consider how you will handle scaling, for example, or other challenges. 

Everything has a drawback and plus and minus, so pros and cons. Even Kong is a new product. It may be a good performer, and very lightweight, with low infrastructure needs. We don't know. 

Our cyber is very strong. Like us, people will have to evaluate, depending upon their use cases, all the pros and cons of security and see how it fits. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

I use Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for application integration.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager's most valuable aspect is it has plenty of features.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager could improve the monitoring because it is very poor quality and not user-friendly. It is not as good as other solutions on the market.

I have been using Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for approximately two years.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager has been stable and my usage. However, there have been some issues with SMTP connectors.

The scalability of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is good.

We have approximately 80 people using the solution. They are architects and developers. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution if the depends require it.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager technical support is good, they are responsive.

I rate the support from Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager a five out of five.

I have previously used different API gateway solutions, such as Akana API Management and SOA Software.

The initial setup of the Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is simple. The whole process did not take a lot of time.

We did the implementation of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager in-house.

The price of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is very high.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is a very good solution.

I rate Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager a nine out of ten.

I have dealt with a few use cases involving MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, but I am unsure whether its features are useful in my company. The tool is useful for the governance of APIs that I have created with some policies, like SLA-based policies or rate-limiting policies. In general, it is an advanced product.

The main reason for using MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is that the company's external systems inside the customers' ecosystem need to be publicly called APIs by providing the paid version of API so that anyone can access the endpoints from the internet. In our company, we need some tools to configure who can or can't call you while being able to control the amount of calls, irrespective of how many they are. In our company, the tool becomes useful to make five calls per minute with our current license.

The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.

The tool already can solve the problems for which it was designed, and it is really hard to have any thoughts over what can be improved in the product, as it is a very niche task.

The product's price should be available for public review since it is not currently available for others to see, making it one of the areas where the product has certain shortcomings. The product's price is revealed only when you contact MuleSoft Anypoint.

I have experience with MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for a year.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My company deals with clients having small and medium businesses.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

I rate the product's initial setup phase a nine out of ten.

Experienced developers can deploy the product in a day.

The product is expensive.

Speaking about how MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager helps in the area of API lifecycle management, I would say that API Manager can be considered the last step after you have established all your systems in your environment. It is useful to configure some small details in areas like rate limiting.

The monitoring part of the tool is not needed for simple solutions. The monitoring part of the tool is required when you have a large ecosystem of different software applications. The tool helps monitor when your systems slow down. I don't have experience with the tool's monitoring part.

The benefit of the policy management feature in MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager ensures that your APIs are secured. The tool also provides our company with very flexible control when it comes to the usage by our clients.

I rate MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager's support for my organization's digital transformation efforts a ten out of ten.

I have no special recommendations for those who plan to use the product. The tool is used by technical developers for development purposes.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.