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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
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 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

"The services that I consume through IBM API Connect are beneficial. It can handle multiple API management."
"One of the most valuable features is the easy-to-use web interface."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"It is a complete all-in-one solution."
"The solution is very scalable because it's on the cloud."
"Its speed and performance are valuable."
"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."
"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
 

Cons

"The administration of the user interface and the technical documentation are areas of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."
"Improving the documentation would be beneficial as it currently presents navigation challenges. Incorporating a step-by-step guide could facilitate the integration or migration of various systems, including databases. The existing documentation only comprises plain text, hence incorporating more interactive instructions could enhance its usefulness."
"It would be helpful to have access monitoring."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"We've had some issues upgrading to the latest version of the solution."
"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"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 initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"It is a costly product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect is quite pricey."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"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."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."
"The price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."
"There was a need to purchase an upfront license or a one-time license or upfront license, but I cannot remember the details about it clearly."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
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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
30%
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 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

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: March 2025.
841,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.