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Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs IBM App Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (47th), Workload Automation (29th)
IBM App Connect
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Enables creation of sophisticated applications with powerful parallelism and quick, effective support
The most valuable features of Ab Initio Co>Operating System are its performance and the ability to implement parallelism. There are three kinds of parallelism in Ab Initio Co>Operating System, which allow us to create very sophisticated solutions for almost any kind of application. This parallelism is one of the strongest features. Additionally, its scalability offers a unique way to escalate applications that differs from other technologies. In terms of data processing, the emphasis is on understanding the data. Data profiling is fundamental, and Ab Initio Co>Operating System integrates tools to perform this within the GDE, as well as specialized products for this purpose. Data profiling graphs can be implemented when necessary to understand the data sources.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexible adapters, good scalability but logging can be difficult at times
There is room for improvement in the logging messages. Sometimes, if you put someone new into App Connect, they can abandon it the same day. The logging is really painful. However, IBM has made efforts to integrate with Elasticsearch for logging, so that's an improvement. Overall, the logging can be difficult at times. One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient. Back in 2013, I worked with Sonic ESB, and even then, it had CI/CD with Maven. With App Connect, you need to build everything yourself when using tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, or CircleCI. IBM really needs to provide official support for this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"When using IBM stacks, IBM App Connect is suitable and integrates well with other IBM products like WebSphere."
"Provides good security features."
"One of the most beneficial features is the ability to handle multiple communication technologies, like integrating Kafka flows, which is helpful as other teams heavily use it. Regarding error handling, I initially wrote most of the handling myself. While built-in features for error handling are built-in, it largely depends on the developer. We use a custom solution that catches all exceptions, logs them in a database, and replays them as needed. It has been effective for us for over twenty years."
"We use IBM App Connect for the integration between the applications."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendliness of the application."
"I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's likely an adapter for that."
"I would say that the most valuable feature is the array of connectors and integration tools."
"There is a friendly interface for configuration, and integration is made easy."
 

Cons

"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"The product should improve its support."
"Updates are constantly delayed."
"IBM App Connect is scalable. From the administration side, they need to improve the RBAC model, as well as the clustering of this product. It will be good if we can start up the cluster, via IBM Connect Console. Some other products like MuleSoft, are providing this type of administration. MuleSoft is easy to use and user friendly."
"More connectors could be available for the product as some of the third-party software doesn't have default connectors."
"The addition of string functionality would be a benefit, particularly in the ESQL space that IBM already uses internally."
"One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient."
"IBM needs to enhance and have a stronger offering for the event streaming part because this is the future needed for the containerization and the new integration requirement."
"The setup time for App Connect could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"The price could be better."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
University
5%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
Our company has a big project for delivery and e-commerce sites. We use IBM App Connect to deliver information to our end users after they buy our products. We get information from many places, suc...
 

Also Known As

Co>Operating System
IBM Cast Iron
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

A multinational transportation company
United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs. IBM App Connect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.