IBM DataPower Gateway vs Mule ESB comparison

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2,166 views|1,584 comparisons
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7,710 views|6,369 comparisons
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM DataPower Gateway and Mule ESB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB Report (Updated: March 2024).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable.""I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime.""What I like most is the stability.""I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform.""The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level.""Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features.""The solution is robust.""The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."

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"The connectors help to connect with a variety of applications.""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 architecture based on events has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company.""Mule ESB is a very easy-to-use and user-friendly solution.""Most of our use cases are for Salesforce. So, the connectors for Salesforce have been really helpful. They've made development two times faster.""Easy connectivity and easy integration.""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 offers multiple deployment options."

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Cons
"They should add features to manage API integrations.""Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement.""They should improve the solution's clustering features.""For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive.""The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help.""The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better.""The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail.""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."

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"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature.""MuleSoft isn't as mature as some other integration technologies out there like IBM WebSphere. There's room for growth, and MuleSoft is working toward that.""The initial setup is not easy.""Lacking some connectors that could be included.""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.""I would like to see support for BPM in the next release of this solution.""We would like to have a built-in logging framework in which we can do auditing.""The initial setup could be more straightforward."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
  • "It's expensive when you compare it with others."
  • "The licensing cost is very expensive."
  • "As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
  • "IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
  • "The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
  • "Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
  • "This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
  • More IBM DataPower Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
  • "The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
  • "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."
  • "Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."
  • "This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
  • "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."
  • More Mule ESB Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience.
    Top Answer:I would say the pricing is normal. It is not the cheapest, but it is not the most expensive either.
    Top Answer:One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases. So it doesn't integrate with Postgres.
    Top Answer: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 on… more »
    Top Answer: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 Integration… more »
    Top Answer:The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
    Ranking
    Views
    2,166
    Comparisons
    1,584
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    354
    Rating
    8.8
    Views
    7,710
    Comparisons
    6,369
    Reviews
    14
    Average Words per Review
    375
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
    Learn More
    Overview

    IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

    DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

    IBM DataPower Gateway Features

    IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

    • Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
    • DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
    • Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
    • Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

    IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

    IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

    • Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
    • Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
    • Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
    • Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

    Reviews from Real Users

    “My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

    “You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

    For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.
    Sample Customers
    RBL Bank, Availity
    Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm33%
    Computer Software Company20%
    Pharma/Biotech Company7%
    Security Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Insurance Company11%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company46%
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise8%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise76%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise54%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM DataPower Gateway is ranked 5th in ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) with 12 reviews while Mule ESB is ranked 2nd in ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) with 15 reviews. IBM DataPower Gateway is rated 8.4, while Mule ESB is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM DataPower Gateway writes "An out-of-the-box solution that's feature-rich, fast, and easy to integrate with other products". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Mule ESB writes "Offers a free-of-cost edition, but it needs to pose fewer coding challenges". IBM DataPower Gateway is most compared with IBM API Connect, Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, IBM Integration Bus and Amazon API Gateway, whereas Mule ESB is most compared with IBM Integration Bus, Oracle Service Bus, Red Hat Fuse, webMethods Integration Server and Mule Anypoint Platform. See our IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Mule ESB report.

    See our list of best ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) vendors.

    We monitor all ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) 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.