We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and Microsoft Azure API Management based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Azure API Management provides DevOps by default and has a robust marketplace where users can easily integrate with existing APIs and begin work immediately. It scales easily and integrates seamlessly with Azure cloud infrastructure. In contrast, many users feel IBM is a bit dated and is lacking cloud-focused tools.It is also more difficult to deploy.
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
"What's best about IBM API Connect is the excellent administration. The development tool that builds the API is also very simple, and user-friendly, and it doesn't consume too much time. Another valuable feature in IBM API Connect is its good reporting feature, particularly for operations, but the most valuable feature of the solution for the customer is security. IBM API Connect provides a DMZ and a security gateway between the external and internal environment, so you can publish your API safely. IBM API Connect can also integrate with any tool or middleware that works on open standards without the need for development or coding, so integration with the solution is easier."
"The centralized management: this provides a management module that can deploy and apply security policies to all APIs, including all the gateways that are deployed on-premises and on any cloud because the gateway component can run at a VMware or in a Kubernetes cluster."
"The statistics component is easy to use."
"Policy configurations are pretty easy."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The solution provides a common place for all APIs, allowing for easy sharing and exchange of information between internal and external stakeholders."
"In-built policies and security functions."
"The Application Gateway we have found to be the most useful in Microsoft Azure API Management. We have integrated the Microsoft Azure API Management with Application Gateway. Application Gateway is a type of load balancer that we are using for the high availability of our API calls."
"It's easier to use and has more features than Google."
"Ease of integration into the entire Microsoft environment."
"The API management is great."
"It's easy to use compared to other products. It's easy to set up."
"The ease of use of the solution is excellent."
"Azure APIM's best features are its straightforward access management (it's a single point of access for all monitoring and logging and for policy implementation) and its integration with the Azure Cloud infrastructure."
"It’s easy to set up."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"The solution is overly complex."
"We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security."
"Possible improvement is mainly around having more of the cloud oriented architecture bringing stability in adding new capabilities around security."
"It is expensive within this class of products."
"It should be cheaper."
"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."
"There are some performance issues and issues related to asynchronous APIs."
"I would like to see better scalability and better performance."
"Microsoft Azure API Management's most valuable features are the microservices we used to use. They were API callers to receive communication with the network and building system, to complete the request. The response would be through the processing system."
"From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance."
"The product needs to introduce a developer portal."
"The licensing fees should be cheaper."
"They should improve the inbuilt policies that they have and that should properly create a deployment architecture as well."
"In terms of improvement, it would be helpful if they could develop an on-premises option."
"The API gateway can be very complex."
More Microsoft Azure API Management Pricing and Cost Advice →
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while Microsoft Azure API Management is ranked 1st in API Management with 68 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Azure API Management is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of IBM API Connect writes "Good speed and performance, but it's based on a bit dated architecture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure API Management writes "Efficiently manages and monetizes API ". IBM API Connect is most compared with IBM DataPower Gateway, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, Amazon API Gateway and Kong Gateway Enterprise, whereas Microsoft Azure API Management is most compared with Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, Kong Gateway Enterprise and WSO2 API Manager. See our IBM API Connect vs. Microsoft Azure API Management report.
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We monitor all API Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.