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IBM API Connect vs MuleSoft API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.6%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 6.1%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Q&A Highlights

 

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 15, 2024
Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features
While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.
Karthick Sampangi - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 25, 2023
Streamlines integration for financial services and automotive sectors
It's cloud, so that's the pro. It has all the features that other API manager does, and there are some features that vary from product to product. Everything cannot be brought upon MuleSoft or Anypoint API Manager. Right now, the universal API Manager is applicable for any API hosted in any server, it is not only MuleSoft. If we can bring the feature, I am a customer who has a MuleSoft API, as well as an on-prem API, which is developed on Java or some other integration tool. Still, I wanted to leverage the API Manager capability to my non-mule APIs. If these kinds of features are provided to the customer, I think they should be very happy with that approach.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product gathers data to measure API performance."
"The ability for all of our web applications to share standard functions and documents easily is valuable."
"API Connect is a very good platform for the development of APIs."
"The technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."
"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."
"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."
"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."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability."
"One of the more valuable features is the stability of the platform."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager has the most valuable data components and can integrate APIs across multiple microservices."
"We're using MuleSoft API Manager to integrate with an endpoint in our backend system to import much information into Salesforce. Other tools didn't allow for as many API calls, so we used it to create a new endpoint."
"I found the authentication features very valuable, like how the tool provides client IDs and secrets and lets you apply authentication policies. We bought the Titanium package with analytics, which allowed us to do rate limiting and throttling. The API monitoring and alerting were also useful."
"It provides all of the robust platform-enabled features."
"The most effective features of Anypoint API Manager for policy enforcement include security enforcement, rate limiting, client enforcement, traffic control, service level agreement policies, and caching policies."
"It provides various advantages in the integration field, including support for Azure services and cloud integrations."
 

Cons

"The monetization of the API could be improved. The pricing for the consumer is also very important to improve this solution."
"The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this can be more decentralized components."
"We would have more capability to interact with the catalog and inventories, so a more DevOps-friendly solution is needed."
"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."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"In the next version, I don't know if they've already been included it or not, but the designer and all the tools should be on the cloud. I don't want any external installation or local installation."
"We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from IBM. I'd like to see increased flexibility, more frequent updates with new features, an efficient upgrade process, and additional AI capabilities for future releases."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"The pricing is quite expensive. It should be adjusted to make it more affordable for users."
"The setup process could be simpler."
"The initial setup, if you go back three or three and a half years, definitely, for us, was complex."
"Their analytics needs a lot of improvement. It's really lacking right now."
"Better documentation to help explain each of the features would be really helpful."
"Their studio performance is very slow, it requires a lot of memory, and should be improved."
"Migrating any existing middleware platform to Mulesoft is difficult because of the transformation, conversion and integration involved. Better tools are needed to achieve quicker time to market."
"The initial setup is very complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."
"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."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"It's an expensive product."
"API Connect is quite pricey."
"When it comes to determining price, the pre-sales team interacts with the customer's primary integration team and the price is negotiated based on the specific usage of the system."
"The pricing is very expensive, although you get a lot of power from the product."
"The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable."
"It is really expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"The solution looks more expensive on the surface because it builds all the functions into one core component or into an integrated suite of components."
"I think that it is pretty expensive."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as six and a half to seven."
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Answers from the Community

SM
Dec 2, 2022
Dec 2, 2022
MuleSoft Anypoint
See 2 answers
MD
Dec 2, 2022
MuleSoft Anypoint
WK
Dec 2, 2022
Of those three: MuleSoft Anypoint. But, cost-friendly is another term, I would choose a different solution. We are happy with Gravitee.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

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?
It is a pretty expensive tool. The tool is expensive if I consider how products like WSO2 are available in the market. You have pretty much many options in the open-source community, considering ho...
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.
How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of software, it is easy to install and upgrade. While there are different things that ...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Anypoint API Manager
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
801,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.