We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and IBM Datapower Gateway based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: All other things being equal, IBM Datapower Gateway has a slight edge in this comparison because it received higher marks than IBM API Connect in the service and support category.
"It is a complete all-in-one solution."
"IBM API Connect is a good product, and their technical support is excellent."
"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."
"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 technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."
"It has all of the tools that are needed for the specific mission."
"This is a very easy to use solution."
"The capabilities are very good."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"The solution is stable."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The solution is robust."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"It's based on a little bit dated architecture. A lot of evolution has happened after that. It's an evolving field. Kong is a Kubernetes-based platform. Kong runs on Kubernetes, but all the other ones are in microservices. So, there's a lot of improvement that can be done."
"It should be cheaper."
"The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"The solution is not scalable."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"Business applications could be exposed to users."
"We ran it on top of the Kubernetes cluster, so it wasn't a standalone service. In the worst-case scenario, API Connect couldn't stay online if all the containers went down. We had to restart all the services. We shut down all the containers automatically one by one."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"It is a costly product."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."
"Its support services could be better."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while IBM DataPower Gateway is ranked 8th in API Management with 26 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while IBM DataPower Gateway is rated 8.4. 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 IBM DataPower Gateway writes "Easy to use, plenty of functionality, but expensive". IBM API Connect is most compared with Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, Amazon API Gateway and Kong Gateway Enterprise, whereas IBM DataPower Gateway is most compared with Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, Mule ESB, IBM Integration Bus and Kong Gateway Enterprise. See our IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway 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.
