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IBM API Connect 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

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)
IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (4th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.3%, up from 6.2% 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
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Quite flexible and provides excellent performance for API gateway
The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support, which can be considered quite expensive. In terms of new functionality, I think the analytics can be improved in V10. The analytics feature was better in the older version, 2.18. But in V10, it's not as flexible. When exporting analytics as KSP or JSON, it's not well formatted. They can work on enhancing the analytics part. Additionally, they can focus on reducing the hardware cost.
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

"It has all of the tools that are needed for the specific mission."
"IBM API Connect is a reliable and scalable solution."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"What's best about IBM API Connect is the excellent administration. The development tool that builds the API is also very simple, and user-friendly, and it doesn't consume too much time. Another valuable feature in IBM API Connect is its good reporting feature, particularly for operations, but the most valuable feature of the solution for the customer is security. IBM API Connect provides a DMZ and a security gateway between the external and internal environment, so you can publish your API safely. IBM API Connect can also integrate with any tool or middleware that works on open standards without the need for development or coding, so integration with the solution is easier."
"The developer portal has been the most useful feature."
"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."
"The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness."
"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"It is a scalable solution."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"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 solution is robust."
"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."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
 

Cons

"The installation process could use improvement. I hope that in the next release, the installation process is easier."
"The implementation process could benefit from improvements, as it may take some time to become accustomed to the deployment."
"The solution would be better if it had cloud functionalities."
"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."
"API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database."
"Due to bugs in integration, we have to look for workaround on fixing and using DataPower as gateway."
"Debugging could be improved."
"It would be helpful to have access monitoring."
"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."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an expensive product."
"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."
"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"It is an expensive solution. The licensing model is based on a per-subscription and per-subscriber end-user basis, meaning the price is determined by the end-users of the platform."
"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
Price depends on many factors like size of the deal, competitive factors, timing, customer profile or where the pricing for API Calls is very competitive comparing to any of the leader players.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side. Scalability is an issue with IBM API Connect, making it an area where improvements are required.
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
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
RBL Bank, Availity
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.