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3scale API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management
Ranking in API Management
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Luis Bonilla - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides cost savings while maintaining the same functionality and capabilities
There were two main reasons for consideration. One of them was the cost. It is true that the other solution had more capabilities, but we didn't have plans to use them. We didn't need them, but the cost was slightly higher. Also, we were already working with the Red Hat solution and integrating it with some other solutions we have in place. It was better and more convenient for us. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The gateway is the most valuable feature because it makes it possible for us to gather all traffic into one proxy, which is a good thing."
"The product is stable."
"To me, the most valuable feature of 3scale API Management is that it lets you add a backend to the product. I also like that you can integrate it well with OpenShift clusters, making 3scale API Management a useful solution."
"3scale API Management's best feature is API management."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and security features."
"I like the API automation."
"It's good that they aren't adding a lot of features like ESP, etc. It's okay with just being a gateway."
"The standard deployment is very simple."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
 

Cons

"What I'd like to improve in 3scale API Management is its route-limiting feature. Currently, I don't know how to do that effectively on the solution, but in Kong, I know how to do it, so I would love to see route-limiting being easily done on 3scale API Management. It would also be good if there was some authentication that you could do from 3scale API Management because Kong offers that functionality out of the box. What I'd love to see in the next release of 3scale API Management is the ability to integrate more plug-ins easily onto the platform, so you'll be able to extend it, and even do customs management. If Red Hat could offer that extension where it allows the internal organization where 3scale API Management is deployed on-premise to integrate its tools on top of 3scale API Management and provide an API for that, that will make the solution very powerful."
"3scale API Management only supports restful APIs and doesn't support SOAP."
"The user experience could be better. The developer portal is too complex and hard to configure."
"It would be helpful to improve the customization features so that the customer can do it based on their own needs."
"What was suggested by Red Hat was a crucial part of the configuration, but when we started to ask about the supportability of this configuration, Red Hat said only some parts of the configuration would be supported."
"The product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it."
"I believe the CMS part of it has room for improvement though. That is where you write a couple of things if you want to publish your API. It's based on liquid scripting, which doesn't seem like the obvious ones to script with."
"We tried to use the portal, but we decided that it wasn't enough. The content management system (CMS) is not easy to use if you want to customize things, and it's hard to get someone who has the knowledge to work with the CMS."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"It is a costly product."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't think that 3scale is very expensive."
"The cost was around $45,000 per year."
"The pricing is affordable, it's cheap."
"3scale API Management has reasonable pricing, judging from its competitor, Kong. My organization pays yearly for the 3scale API Management license, though I'm unable to give the exact figure because every single day there are new clusters deployed. I'm in charge of three to four clusters in my team, but give or take, it costs a few thousand lakhs."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The product is expensive."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too 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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?
I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The price could be more flexible for different clients.
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about 3scale API Management vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.