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Frends vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

Frends
Ranking in API Management
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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) (4th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Frends is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Kalle Reponen - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers simplicity, ease of customization, and visibility of integrations
One thing is that Frends keep the integration, and that is something I know that it's coming, like, a later version; that is something we will be currently missing. So the end-users could take an interest in use by themselves, with the release thing some result flow. That is the most wanted and requested feature for now. Another enhancement includes the monitoring part. It would be nice to have some sort of maybe mobile app on which we can see how integrations are running if there are some problems, and getting those alerts on the mobile would be really nice.
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 product has valuable features for version control."
"The user-friendly interface for constructing integration solutions is also a notable benefit."
"One of the benefits is the speed of creating something new. Second, it's replacing the old integration quite fast. Then it is like the visibility of the integration and the possibility to see what is happening in the integration."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"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."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The solution is stable."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
 

Cons

"It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors."
"One of the primary areas for improvement is a more mobile-friendly interface for the control center."
"Another enhancement includes the monitoring part. It would be nice to have some sort of maybe mobile app on which we can see how integrations are running if there are some problems, and getting those alerts on the mobile would be really nice."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"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."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"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."
"It is a costly product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Recent changes in their pricing have removed this benefit, moving towards process-specific pricing."
"The pricing is quite fair."
"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."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"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."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The product is expensive."
"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 total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
59%
Computer Software Company
14%
Construction Company
4%
Insurance Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Frends?
The product has valuable features for version control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Frends?
The pricing is quite fair. It is quite low compared to competitors, especially when you consider that Frends is a US-based company. So, it's almost cheap compared to them. But, we have an unlimited...
What needs improvement with Frends?
It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors. Basic features like reading and editing into Excel file format could be included.
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

Information Not Available
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about Frends vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.