Boomi iPaaS Reviews

• The best features are that it is a cloud-based and a multi-tenant tool.
• The licensing feature is its USP.
• Boomi charges are based on the number of connections used, rather than the number of users in a company who use the tool. This cuts down the licensing costs by a great deal.

We are a consulting firm that works closely with Dell Boomi. Since we have started using this product, we have added multiple clients. Many clients are moving away from the traditional integration tools to cloud-based integration tools. Dell Boomi is a leading iPaaS tool.

Dell is constantly improving because it follows agile development. Every month, Dell keeps adding more and more features.

There are still some areas that need improvement. For example, when updates are going on, the product becomes very slow.

I have been using it for two years.

Dell is a very stable product. It also lists all the updates and issues the tool is having on its website. I do not know of any other tool that constantly updates their website for performance issues/slowness. They also give updates without hiding anything.

Dell is a highly scalable product. We have not seen any issues in terms of scaling the product to the enterprise level. However, Dell Boomi is not an ETL tool. It is an integration tool.

I would give technical support a rating of 10/10.

The great thing about Dell Boomi is there is no setup involved. It is a cloud-based tool. All the integration is done in a browser. Only a light-weight Java runtime engine needs to be installed for the process to run. Other than that, there is no other setup needed.

Dell follows a very unique licensing model. They do not charge by the number of people using the software (client-server model), but rather they charge based on the number of connections used. This makes it very cost effective.

I would very much advise other companies to give it a try. Dell Boomi gives away a 30-day free trial. They also do corporate training, if required.

We use this solution as normal middleware — for transformation routing.

We have around 20-100 clients that use this solution. 

There should be more scripting possibilities. Boomi is essentially low-code/no-code — it's very graphically oriented. If you wish to maintain it, then you'll require more scripting language.

I have been using Boomi AtomSphere Integration for roughly three years. 

Boomi AtomSphere Integration is stable.

We have a tight relationship with Boomi. We get support from Boomi then pass it on to our clients. The support they provide us with is very good. 

Boomi is a cloud offering. You just need a subscription and you're ready to go.

I would absolutely recommend this solution. Furthermore, I would recommend using DXC as your provider. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Boomi AtomSphere Integration a rating of seven.

The product's integration features are quite rich and low code. It is easy to use.

The product's UI could be more convenient. Its pricing needs improvement as well. They should add a source control feature and provide better integration with Azure DevOps.

We have been using Boomi AtomSphere Integration for four years.

The product is overall stable.

It is a scalable product.

The technical support services are good in terms of diverse community support. However, there could be better on-the-ground technical support as well. They could provide more resources to tackle the issues.

Positive

There could be an easy-to-understand licensing model.

I rate Boomi AtomSphere Integration an eight out of ten. I advise others to get experience in product implementation from an account manager from a best practice point of view.

On the enterprise side, lead to cash, order to procurement, procure to pay, and trouble to resolve are the use cases that we automate very rapidly by using Boomi AtomSphere Integration. On the operational side, it can be very well utilized for industrial IOP. IIOP related use cases are proactive maintenance.

Boomi platform is always on the cloud, but the deployment could be on-premises. The code that we develop can be on the cloud or on-premises.

It is a low-code and high-configuration platform, which is very valuable. Develop once and run anywhere is another useful feature. It also has connectors for more than 200 applications.

It provides value for money. Our customers who have implemented this solution have a very high ROI.

They need to introduce more configurable functions to remove scripting or coding. Scripting should be minimized. It should have exhaustive functions. Currently, it lacks in this aspect.

I have been using this solution for almost two years.

It is quite stable. Boomi claims 99.99% availability, and this is true.

Technical support is excellent. They are quite prompt. They have free of cost as well as paid support.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It is a one-click process. It usually takes 15 to 20 minutes. It will take a maximum of 30 minutes.

We implemented it ourselves. It is a complete self-service. You don't need any help.

The number of people required for its deployment and maintenance depends on the complexity and size of the project. For example, for the integration of Salesforce with Netflix for the lead to cash use case, you need a maximum of two resources for three weeks.

We will keep on implementing this solution in the future. I would definitely recommend this solution. It is a very promising product.

I would rate Boomi AtomSphere Integration a nine out of ten.

We are the most popular Dell Boomi integrator in the world and the first integrator for this solution in Japan. The primary use case is to act as middleware between legacy systems and cloud-based systems. For example, it will integrate legacy systems with products like Salesforce and SAP for both master data and transactional data.

Our customers are happy because this solution improves both their functional and business areas. This is something that is very important to them.

We work on the flow between systems and the most valuable features for that purpose are the mapping of data, interface mapping, and data integration.

This solution can be used to interface with Hadoop to assist when working with big data.

Boomi AtomSphere can help customers to develop a PoC without having to set up an on-premises server.

The reporting is very good.

The Boomi Suggest feature is very important because it provides you with information about the experience that other customers have had and it can help with simulating processes, based on a large knowledge base.

We would like to see more involvement between Dell Boomi and the end-users to help improve the customer experience.

I have been working with Dell Boomi AtomSphere for more than five years.

Although stability depends more on the team than it does the product itself, I would say that this solution is very stable.

This is a scalable solution that is used by very large companies.

Our relationship with Dell Boomi technical support is very good and we go to them when needed. However, we have a lot of experience and we typically provide solutions to customers without having to request assistance.

The clients in Japan who need to contact technical support directly are directed to the Australia support office.

The initial setup is generally very complex because, in a large company, you can't find anybody that has a global view of both business and technology. This means that you end up speaking with people on the business side, and they are not as familiar with IT. Ultimately, this makes it more difficult to create a PoC.

If the proof of concept is quickly deployed then the customers are generally impressed by the facility and the features that it provides. The length of time for deployment depends on having a good understanding of both the business and of the stakeholders during the proof of concept.

This solution is made for large companies. Smaller organizations don't use these kinds of middleware applications because AtomSphere is used to integrate between large products like SAP and Salesforce.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to have a very good FDD. The functional description of the business processes should be very well described before starting this kind of project.

Overall, this is a very good product.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

• Dell Boomi offers a leading Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) platform worldwide by an elastic single-instance, multi-tenant cloud.
• An atom (the run-time) can also be deployed on an on premise infrastructure or private cloud, and has cluster capabilities (called a molecule) for high availability (HA).
• The iPaaS functionality is very mature. The browser based IDE is also very mature and stable.
• Integrations are configured visually by dragging and dropping them on a canvas, and by this it offers a (near) zero code IDE. Coding can be applied by scripting through Javascript or Groovy.
• The platform offers over 200 standard connectors for applications and technology, such as HTTP(s), databases, SOAP, XML, and REST. It furthermore offers EDI connectors, including HL7 for health, exposing APIs, Master Data Management (MDM) and a hpaPaaS with ManyWho for BPM use cases. ManyWho was acquired in March 2017 by Dell Boomi and was then added to the offering.
• The Boomi Suggest feature offers crowd sourced data mapping suggestions based on use cases of metadata of over 7 million maps. it is quite impressive and accurate.
• Automatic crowd-based regression testing is offered by Boomi Assure in which the quality and productivity for application integration is increased substantially when compared to a conventional approach and/or other iPaaS offerings in the market.
• Boomi Resolve offers automatically suggested solutions for commonly occurring errors.
• Offers an additional efficient means for delivering application integration when compared to other offerings in the market.

The Dell Boomi integration platform allows an organization to quickly integrate their possible dispersed application landscape of SaaS of on premise and private cloud applications.

AtomSphere has a bi-weekly release calendar through which improved and new functionality is automatically released to its customers.

This allows an organization to quickly use new features and/or improvements. The platform’s time-to-market can be considered as distinctive with such a short release calendar.

• There are more mature (dedicated) API management and master data management (MDM) solutions available in the market.
• Dell Boomi does not offer an option for local version control/repositories. (As is also the case usually with other SaaS vendors)
• This may be seen as a disadvantage, but it does not really have any implications other than to rebuild the integrations when moving away from it to a new integration platform. The same holds true when moving away from other integration platforms available in the market.

I have been using this product for seven months.

No stability issues so far.

No scalability issues so far.

No experience yet with their customer service and technical support.

I used to work at a MuleSoft implementation partner. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is used there for stage-event driven architectures (SEDA) for both ESB patterns, iPaaS, micro-services, and API management. Dell Boomi was added to the product stack in January, 2017.

The initial setup was very straightforward and was as you would expect with a cloud platform and a service.

The ROI is that application integration is delivered much faster and efficiently than in a conventional approach. This the case with other integration platforms available in the market with similar capabilities

As a result, less FTE is involved during delivery and support. The time-to-market of new initiatives is greatly reduced and organizations are able to innovate and differentiate in the ever growing competitive and changing market.

As data and information is no longer ‘locked’ in systems of record and/or are no longer opened up by point-to-point integrations through which vendor lock-in increases, an organization using an integration platform such as Dell Boomi gains and takes control over their own data and information.

The licensing model of Dell Boomi is based on a ‘pay-per-use’ model. I would advise an organization adopting Dell Boomi to make a clear plan on which integrations should be delivered, so that all needed investments are known up-front.

The technology type of integrations should also be taken into account when creating this complete overview for licensing, as well as the expected number of messages per interface/API.

If a company is replacing an existing integration platform, such as the ones that were available around 10 years ago, I would advise on migrating step-by-step to Boomi.

By doing this, all new integrations can be realized on Dell Boomi and existing connections can be migrated in time and when required (before license renewal of the former integration platform).

This would allow an organization to have the proper type of cost control in place, and would not require a ‘big bang’ approach for migrating to the new platform, while such an approach is still be possible and viable.

I worked at a Dell Boomi implementation partner. A large part of the in-house team of integration consultants who work with the customers have been certified upfront to guarantee a level of quality in delivery.

If an organization wants to implement and support the integration platform with their own development staff, I would advise them to partner up with a Dell Boomi partner for best practices and to receive training.

When selecting a vendor team, my advice would be to have a formal RFI/RFP and to have a Proof of Concept (PoC) in place for the short list based on customer specific use cases.

Secondly, I would base a final decision/selection on the ‘organizational fit’ between the organization in question and a possible implementation partner. How much the partner can unburden an organization in this field, as the partner chosen should be the expert, is also important. Not only is qualitative and on-time delivery key, but also support.

Additionally, I would look for a partner with a proven track record of support.

In both cases, on-site reference visits can help to get additional insight in the product and a possible implementation partner.

Besides the advice on partnering up with an official Dell Boomi partner, it is good to know that by using the very visual and mature IDE, non-IT minded and skilled people can also learn the platform rather quickly.

We have several integration trainees who are on-boarding the platform and have no knowledge, background, nor experience in IT. This seems in line with, and a confirmation of, the ‘citizen developer’ idea.

The platform is offered standard as an iPaaS on the Dell cloud platform. I am not aware enough of the capabilities of this cloud platform. Considering AWS as an option for a private cloud for hosting seems logical.

Boomi's always a mix of a Cloud system for management. You can configure it to connect with an on-premises environment if you need to connect with on-premise data sources. But with Boomi, you don't really have to choose, it is always primarily the Cloud version, and then you just install a means of connecting to an on-premise data source if you need to and that is all.

Boomi is a tool that is implemented as a mixed market solution. It is not for very small companies. It is also not the right tool for very large companies that have more than 50 integrations. It is ideal for a mid-sized company with say 5 to 20 integrations — maybe 30 — and then it begins to become too expensive. It is a low code or no-code integration platform, which does exactly what it says. It is fairly easy for a semi-technical user to configure and maintain it. It is very visual. For us, it is simply an alternative for customer development.

Boomi consists of several modules, and the API is one product that Boomi is definitely not up to par with. For example, Jitterbit has a better API management module. However, Dell is putting a lot of energy to make changes. There is a new release already now in December or in November (2019), and they're planning some more releases in 2020. But I would say if there is one module that Boomi is less advanced in than the competition it would be the API management. But it might be totally different mid-2020.

Another point that could use improvement for Boomi is license pricing. If you don't know the pricing model very well, you might quickly end up paying more than you expected especially if you are growing and adding integrations. Again, it is different than the competition so it may be difficult to compare, but the pricing model could also clearly be simplified.

We have been using this solution for about two years.

We have not had any problems with stability, so I would say that it is stable.

However, when you compare Boomi to Jitterbit, in terms of how the user interfaces with the integrations, Jitterbit is stronger in that area than Boomi. The user interface, in this case, is only for the people who develop and do the configurations or integration. There is no end-user interface, it is only for the guy who creates the integration. But the screens and the way it is visualized to make your integration is more user-friendly with Jitterbit then with Boomi. Boomi is okay, but it is a bit more of a technical interface made for a more technical user. Jitterbit is a bit nicer, a bit better layout and a bit more intuitive. But once you get over that initial learning and navigation in Boomi and you are up and running it won't matter very much anymore. 

I would say the scalability, from my point of view, where you reach kind of a problem is the pricing. Because once you have a lot of integrations, your price goes up. At a certain point, you will say to yourself that it becomes too expensive. 

There are other technologies that have a different way of pricing, where you do not pay per integration, but there is a much larger initial fee. In theory, Jitterbit can scale pretty much however you want, because you have a lot of ways to configure it and to make it load-balanced and redundant and so on. Those things are no problem and there are no additional fees. You can do much more with it without additional costs. You are not limited by the number of integrations in your price level. But typically the entry-level fee to start is ten times higher to get started with Jitterbit. So a different type of client will go for that pricing model because they don't want to have to think about the pricing constraints.

The Boomi licensed model is actually about the same cost as Jitterbit in the end. It is positioned for companies with 5 to 35 integrations. Once you go above that, it becomes very expensive. If you have more integrations and need to scale more than that, I see that people would maybe want to go to other products like MuleSoft or other larger players.

Because I don't use Boomi myself, I have never been in contact with them directly for any technical issues. The community is free, and the users there can solve a lot of issues. Most of the time can help yourself with the community if you are a bit of a technical user. If you are not very technical, then typically you will ask someone to coach you and to help you. That might typically be a local partner. You will typically only need accommodation for someone to train you and help you to do the first integration and you will probably be ready to do the next one by yourself.

I would say that someone who is familiar with data and queries and familiar with the world of manipulating data will be able to do the initial setup and be productive with Boomi in three to four days.

There is plenty of online learning and a whole certification track. There is a very, very active community, so when you have questions you can just post queries and a few hours later you will get feedback. It is a tool that someone in your company who has a little bit of a technical background and is experienced with data will probably be able to have a production version up and running and to do a lot of things without help from an external partner. Once you start to do more complex integrations or API management, I would advise that you work with an experienced partner to get you up to speed and design. Doing that will keep you from making too many rookie mistakes that will end up costing more time and money to fix.

But it is a tool that you can use at the company and do it yourself. It is not a tool that you need always to pay an external developer to help evolve.

I'm a consultant. I don't do the implementations myself. I select technologies for clients, and then I coach the clients to use them well. I supervise the partner who integrates them. 

Boomi is priced using a different strategy than with Jitterbit. With Jitterbit you pay more at the entry-level. I'm speaking here about the paid version of Jitterbit because Jitterbit also has a free version. With the paid version of Jitterbit, the entry-level is higher than Boomi, but you get the less in the box with Boomi.

So, with Boomi, you can start lower, but you need to make sure that you calculate all the little things you will need, such as a connector for testing. If you are not very familiar with all the options that you don't have, you might think that Boomi is less expensive. But then when you start using it, you see what you need and what you want to add what you had not considered, the pricing scheme can surprise you. It quickly brings up the price to about the same as Jitterbit. As a consultant, I know all this but it may not be obvious even to someone who is careful about due diligence.

We have done an in-depth review of Jitterbit vs. Dell Boomi. For one client we chose Dell Boomi, for the other client we are not sure, we have not decided yet. But both products are, I think, fairly equal. But there are are some differences that would make you choose one over the other.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Dell Boomi AtomSphere as an eight.

What would make it better from my perspective is not just a question of features. There is actually a problem in that market, and that is offering a tool that a company can use by themself without the help of a local partner. I think that is where Boomi as a tool might be just a bit too complex. On the other hand that is also the power of it because the complexity allows you to do more complex integrations. The nice thing is that it is not a case where you have to ask your external partner or technical person to do everything for you. It is really a tool that you can learn to use yourself. I think the point is to be sure you have enough qualified partners and resources locally who can help you when you need it. There I see that Boomi could be a problem for some people depending on location. Because I'm speaking now for Belgium and the Netherlands, in our region it is okay. It can be better, but it is okay.

That is a very big point against Jitterbit. Jitterbit has almost no partners and zero in Belgium. At least not certified partners. That makes it a bit harder to get local support. And I know that for my typical customers — companies that would have from 50 to 1,000 users — that they like to have a local person who can come and coach and help and train, and then also design. In the end, the client wants to do the things themselves, but they want someone to help them to start up. That help is something they prefer in their local, native language and in their local offices. That is something that Boomi provides, even though they could be better in the partner landscape. But for Jitterbit, it is actually non-existent in Belgium. It could be much worse and much more of a problem elsewhere.

There is a roadmap that I saw and it looks very good for the future development of the API, so I have the feeling that Boomi will have the API management issues fairly under control. They can always improve the number and type of connectors that they have for the integrations. What you typically see is that products have various types of connectors in e-class integration at the surface. You have tools that are very focused on sales and marketing, integrating things like your Facebook advertisements, CRM and your leads, and other kinds of integrations. That is not really where Boomi is currently positioned as a big player. There are other companies and products that do those things better.

Then there are other tools that are for really big enterprises or complex systems, and these are very expensive solutions. That is also not where Boomi is positioned. Boomi is mainly focusing on integrating a lot of midsize business databases, CRM systems, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and things of that sort. They do that very well. But they might want to focus also a bit more on social media and that kind of marketing tool to expand their market base. Maybe not doing that is a strategic choice. But I know that they have a lot of funding from Dell — much more funding than Jitterbit has. They must easily have ten times the funding. They have to use it to improve the product compared to the competition.

So basically in the next releases, they could just improve on the partner landscape, the API management model, and maybe add more features for versatility to do more than they do now.

• The GUI
• Any-to-any process creation
• Extremely flexible for any kind of integration between systems

It is easy to create workflows from one system to another, drawing on multiple systems at the same time. For example:

• Creating a process from EDI transmissions to WMS
• Creating marriages of data from multiple systems (time clock/payroll/HR/WMS/financial) to create reports
• Taking information from one system to update it to another system (legacy EDI to WMS, payroll to financial, time clock to payroll, WMS to Legacy)

I have been using Boomi AtomSphere for three years.

We encountered stability issues occasionally, one to two times a year.

We did not encounter scalability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 8/10.

I have used other systems at other companies.

For integrations, it is one of the best products available.

Talk to other companies who have done it before.