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Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Apigee
Ranking in API Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
API Testing Tools (6th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apigee is 14.5%, down from 15.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Q&A Highlights

Rav Bangalore - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 24, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

ShawkyFoda  - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides high visibility and control with good traffic monitoring
Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability. The replication process between Master and Slave for disaster recovery takes too long. Dependencies on analytics impact the performance of the user interface, which should be separate. The complex setup process on-premises, especially with multi-node installations, could also be improved. Additional control in product declarations, based on operations like POST and GET, is needed.
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

"I have found the most valuable features to be tracing a proxy, and managing proxy versions and revisions via the Edge UI component."
"It is easy to set up. It is on Google Platform, and there are multiple deployment models they support, which is great."
"Apigee is a very lightweight solution."
"A simple platform that's easier to work with than IBM API Connect. Support for it is really good and gives it advantage over other providers."
"We can customize the dashboard."
"The tool is one of the earliest API management products and is good. It reduces the Time To Market aspects of products."
"It accelerates development and deployment processes."
"The initial setup was easy - there was an onboarding document with steps that we followed."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"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 solution is robust."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"What I like most is the stability."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
 

Cons

"Apigee could do more to make users aware of what is available in the add-ons."
"Apigee is demanding on the infrastructure so the setup cost is very high for an on-premises deployment."
"Drag and drop of features would be more beneficial, rather than manually working on the configuration and updates."
"The initial setup for the on-prem solution is a little complex."
"The solution is pretty expensive."
"Google isn't enthusiastic about supporting older versions. Google is now trying to move all of its clients to X within the cloud."
"Apigee could improve by integrating with more identity providers and offering a default authentication module."
"The developer portal's adoption of the OpenAPI standard needs to be improved. In the latest version of the developer portal, they have adopted the OpenAPI standard. This feature, however, can be improved by supporting more characteristics of the OpenAPI standard."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"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."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"It is a costly product."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost increases as the usage increases."
"The cost of the licensing is based on the number of API calls that are made."
"Apigee is subject to licensing fees."
"The price of Apigee could be less expensive. The solution can be purchased monthly or annually."
"The solution’s pricing could be more competitive."
"Based on your usage of the APIs you can take a decision to go with either an on-cloud or OPDK version. Get in touch with the sales representatives of Apigee."
"Apigee is slightly expensive, but again, it can depend on the type of usage. All things considered, it is slightly expensive."
"In Latin America, Apigee is expensive. It's not for small businesses; it's more for big businesses."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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 licensing cost is very expensive."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The product is expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
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Answers from the Community

Rav Bangalore - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019
First, we should not compare data power and Apigee. Both meant for different purpose. Generally, DataPower used for authentication most of uses cases, where Apigee enable digital technologies. In addition, it is establish the connectivity from both external/internal/Omini connectivity. DataPower support internal connectivity with limited support in terms of Digital enablement. Apigee is lates...
See 2 answers
DM
Sep 23, 2019
1) Let us start from the base that Google APIGEE is an API Management platform, so it offers more capabilities than a Gateway, therefore we must compare it against IBM API Connect which is the IBM API Management and whose gateways are Datapower machines. 2) An API Management platform consists mainly of three key components: • Portal: where the catalog of available APIs is discovered. • Management: where the life cycle of the APIs is managed. • Gateway: Where the APIs are exposed. At Management level: Google APIGEE and IBM API Connect • Manage the life cycle of the API. • Manage users roles and permissions. • Manage security in APIs. • Manage the consumption of APIs. • Allows traffic policies to be applied. • Allows you to configure, create and attach custom policies. At Portal level: Google APIGEE and IBM API Connect • Display the API documentation • Test the exposed APIs. • Register application developers. • Customize corporate brand. • Manage community. • Self-management. At Gateway level: Google APIGEE and IBM API Connect • API deployment and execution • Execution of security policies • Integration with data sources • Apply traffic policies. • Different types of gateways: • Google APIGEE o Edge Enterprise Gateway. o Microgateway (Limited features)  Does not support all OAuth2.0 flows  No Caching  No threat protecction  Basic monitoring. • IBM API Connect o Microgateway (Discontinued). o Gateways:  Datapower Gateway (Compatible with API Connect version 5)  API Gateway (Focused on the 2018 version of API Connect) At the Deployment level: • Distributed: o Google APIGEE:  Edge Enterprise Gateway: • The complete instance must be taken to each cloud. • The deployment of each instance requires a license.  Microgateway: • They connect to the same instance, however, the limited policies of this component must be kept in mind. • Can only be used by purchasing the full license of the API Management. o IBM API Connect:  Datapower Gateway (7.6 or <): • Compatible with version 5.0.8.x  API Gateway (7.7 or> = 2018.4.x): • Compatible with version 5.0.8.x and 2018 of IBM API Connect.  Both Gateway: • It is only necessary to deploy the Gateway in each cloud, not the full instance of the product. • Manages licenses that charge for API Calls generated in the Gateway and includes the deployment of nodes of its components in any cloud. Both APIGEE and API Connect offer good capabilities to accelerate the deployment of business capabilities such as services or APIs. The decision of which one is better will depend on the conditions of our business and purpose.
SA
Sep 24, 2019
First, we should not compare data power and Apigee. Both meant for different purpose. Generally, DataPower used for authentication most of uses cases, where Apigee enable digital technologies. In addition, it is establish the connectivity from both external/internal/Omini connectivity. DataPower support internal connectivity with limited support in terms of Digital enablement. Apigee is latest integration deployment software in the form of integration software, SaaS and Cloud.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Apigee or Amazon API Gateway?
Amazon API Gateway is a platform that supports the creation and publication of API for web applications. The platform can support thousands of simultaneous API calls, and it provides monitoring, ma...
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 DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, advance.net, Amadeus, AT&T, Bechtel, Belly, Burberry, Chegg, Citrix, Dell, eBay, Equifax, GameStop, First Data, Globe, HCSC, Intralinks, Kao, Meredith, Mitchell, Orange, Pearson
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about Apigee vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.