IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB comparison

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10,499 views|5,582 comparisons
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7,710 views|6,369 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 30, 2022

We performed a comparison between IBM Integration Bus and Mule ESB based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Most IBM Integration Bus users report the initial setup to be straightforward, as do all Mule ESB reviewers.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their performance, stability, and scalability. IBM Integration Bus users say it is easy to use and flexible. Several IBM Integration Bus users say the solution uses a lot of memory. Mule ESB users say it is an easy and intuitive solution. A couple of users say the dependencies can be difficult to manage.
  • Pricing: Reviewers for both products feel the solution is expensive for smaller companies.
  • ROI: Reviewers for both products report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Users of both products are mostly satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Both solutions receive high marks from reviewers. IBM Integration Bus has a slight advantage over Mule ESB due to its flexibility and user-friendly interface.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Integration Bus 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
"The solution addresses all of our middleware needs in respect of transformation, parsing, security and stability; everything really.""I have found the inbound and outbound adapter confirmations valuable.""Web interface, REST API for viewing services, admin, stats, and deployment are premium features, which makes IIB stand among its competition.""The most valuable feature is that it is clear and easy to learn.""I am into microservices using Java Spring Boot, but if we are using legacy systems, IBM Integration Bus is very good for them. They have their own computational logic called EC12, their own proprietary language. You can do any kind of complex logic and can implement other ESVs that I have seen.""I have found IBM Integration Bus is very useful because it can integrate multiple backend applications.""The Cloud Pak for Integration is a useful feature.""It is one of the most stable products which I have seen in the market."

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"The most valuable feature of Mule ESB is data transformation, i.e. our interacting with different systems and orchestrating for our business needs.""The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.""The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily.""I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier.""The product offers a community edition that is free of cost.""I like that Mule ESB provides fast and good technical support.""The connectivity the solution provides is excellent. There are often too many systems that we have to integrate and this helps with that.""Mule ESB has a user-friendly design, and everything is in one place. The API and architecture are popular right now. Also, MuleSoft has a large and supportive online community."

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Cons
"There are a couple of things I want improved, but I think they have already touched upon all those things in the most recent version. I'm not using the most recent version—I use a version older than the most recent—but I'm sure that if I looked into and explored it, I would see more support on the CI/CD and more support for unit testing automation. I've read that they released all these things in the new version of App Connect. Once I explore the new version of this tool, I'll probably have a better idea of suggested improvements.""The price could be better. It would also be better if they simplified the code.""The interface could be more user-friendly.""The product does not provide API management.""This product uses the PVU (Processor Value Unit) license model from IBM, and it is something that should be improved.""We have come across many customer complaints about the excessive time it takes for IBM to provide customer and technical support.""Today, the IBM business rule engine, the DataPower is outside the Enterprise Service Bus. It's sold as a different feature or application. If it could be integrated, then it's able to handle a lot more of what we are doing now rather than just have a stateless ESB that you can't do much on, and a set of normal business rules.""IBM Integration Bus could improve by having a more lightweight installation. Additionally, automation could improve."

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"The Anypoint platform consumes a lot of memory, and it would be great for developers if it were more lightweight.""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.""I would like to see support for BPM in the next release of this solution.""It should have some amount of logging.""From an improvement perspective, there should be fewer coding challenges for users in Mule ESB.""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 initial setup could be more straightforward.""The initial setup is not easy."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Pricing is on par with its competition."
  • "Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
  • "Our licensing is based on a five-year contract, and as far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
  • "The price of this product could be lower."
  • "The solution requires a license and is very expensive here in India."
  • "The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
  • "The price of the license could be cheaper."
  • "The maintenance and support of the product are very expensive."
  • More IBM Integration Bus 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: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:IBM Integration Bus has been effective in facilitating our messaging and service-oriented architecture (SOA) or bus architecture So, we're already utilizing it to transform the data from the source… more »
    Top Answer:The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
    Top Answer:Mule ESB is an expensive solution. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.
    Top Answer:It would be much more beneficial if the solution included AI and business process management.
    Ranking
    Views
    10,499
    Comparisons
    5,582
    Reviews
    23
    Average Words per Review
    399
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    7,710
    Comparisons
    6,369
    Reviews
    14
    Average Words per Review
    375
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM WebSphere ESB
    Learn More
    Overview

    IBM Integration Bus is a market-leading software solution for application integration. It facilitates universal connectivity across enterprise systems, applications, and data, and offers a full range of integration capabilities on a flexible, secure, high-performance platform. You can use IBM Integration Bus to connect apps regardless of the communication formats or protocols they support. This connectivity enables interaction and data exchange among your varied applications in an adaptable, dynamic, and extensible infrastructure. IBM Integration Bus routes, transforms, and enriches messages from one location to another. It offers support for a wide range of functions, including routing, manipulating, filtering, enriching, monitoring, distribution, collection, correlation, and detection.

    You can choose between IBM Integration Bus Advanced Edition, which is appropriate for a production setting, and IBM Integration Bus for Developers (Developer Edition), which is cost-free for development and testing purposes.

    The interactions with IBM Integration Bus can be split into two categories:

    1. Development, testing, and deployment of applications. To program your applications, you can choose from one or more of the available options:
      • Patterns offer reusable solutions that distill a tried-and-true strategy for resolving a typical architecture, design, or deployment task in a specific context. You can use them as-is or tweak them to meet your needs.
      • Message flows describe your application's connectivity logic, which specifies the precise route your data takes in the integration node and, consequently, the processing that the message nodes in that flow perform on it.
      • Message nodes contain the integration logic that must be applied to your data when it passes through your integration node.
      • Message trees describe data in an efficient, format-independent manner. Many of the included nodes allow you to study and edit the contents of message trees, and you can add additional nodes to your own design.
      • You can implement transformations using graphical mapping, JavaTM, ESQL, and XSL, and choose based on the expertise of your workforce without having to provide retraining.
    2. Operational management and performance. The following features of IBM Integration Bus support your deployment's management and performance:
      • A wide range of administrative and system management choices for developed solutions.
      • Support for a variety of hardware platforms and operating systems.
      • A scalable, high-performing architecture built on the needs of traditional transaction processing environments.
      • Tight integration with software solutions from IBM and other suppliers that provide similar management and networking services.

    IBM Integration Bus Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing IBM Integration Bus. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Use the platform’s powerful capabilities to handle various integration requirements to meet the demands of any size project.
    • Help your entire organization make better business decisions by offering quick access, visibility, and control over data as it moves through your business applications and systems.
    • Connect using a variety of diverse applications and web services, eliminating the requirement for complex point-to-point connectivity.
    • To make the most of your existing Microsoft.NET expertise and software investment, use the extended support for Microsoft applications and services.
    • Provide a standardized, simple, and flexible integration base to allow you to more quickly and effectively serve business needs and scale.

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM Integration Bus stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust data enrichment and its event correlation tool. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Richard W., Chief Executive Officer at Responsiv, writes of the solution, “It reduces the need for programmers of consumer applications to understand where data is sourced, or how it is combined. It allows us to avoid the need for consumers to understand multiple API protocols and security arrangements, and in some circumstances can reduce the impact of systems being unavailable.

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, an Integration Architect at a tech services company, notes, “One of the most valuable features is how seamless and easy to use this solution is. It's compatible with the cloud, it's a very seamless and fantastic tool.” He adds, “I rate this solution a nine out of ten.”

    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
    Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
    Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm43%
    Computer Software Company30%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Government4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Insurance Company8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    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 Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise72%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise54%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Integration Bus is ranked 1st in ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) with 20 reviews while Mule ESB is ranked 2nd in ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) with 15 reviews. IBM Integration Bus is rated 8.0, while Mule ESB is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Integration Bus writes "A reliable solution with excellent support infrastructure". 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 Integration Bus is most compared with IBM WebSphere Message Broker, Oracle Service Bus, webMethods Integration Server, IBM DataPower Gateway and Red Hat Fuse, whereas Mule ESB is most compared with Oracle Service Bus, Red Hat Fuse, webMethods Integration Server, Oracle SOA Suite and IBM DataPower Gateway. See our IBM Integration Bus 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.