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IBM API Connect vs OpenLegacy 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

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)
OpenLegacy
Ranking in API Management
34th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 OpenLegacy is 0.3%, down from 0.3% 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.
reviewer1042905 - PeerSpot reviewer
The biggest advantage is how simple the technology was.
I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be. OpenLegacy handles the bread-and-butter TP monitoring stuff, but I am working for one of the six banks in the United States still using the Hogan mainframe, which has a slightly proprietary mechanism. But OpenLegacy currently doesn't have a connector for Hogan. So it would help if they could build one. That would appeal to financial institutions that still use Hogan, like US Bank, Wells Fargo, KeyBank, and Vanguard.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to use and stable."
"The services that I consume through IBM API Connect are beneficial. It can handle multiple API management."
"One of the most valuable features is that we can seamlessly and harmoniously expose our capabilities, from a security point of view."
"This is a very easy to use solution."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"Using API Connect allows us to quickly create proxy APIs and saves time on end-to-end testing, which lets us deliver quickly to clients."
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
"The interface is very nice. It makes the solution easy to use and navigate."
"The biggest advantage of OpenLegacy was how simple the technology was. We were able to build out the OpenLegacy parts very quickly. We put together a couple hundred APIs in six months."
"Using mainframe programs (not screens), the OpenLegacy services do not require any changes by the mainframe programmers, thus reducing development cycles."
"It is possible to solve larger legacy API issues on an enterprise level with this product."
"It is possible to connect a service to a mainframe program or back transaction in a matter of minutes or hours at the most."
"OpenLegacy provides a way to go from the outside world to the legacy mainframe, to move the old standard application to a REST API application. New digital services can be created in a few clicks and this can be done easily by COBOL programmers."
"Using OpenLegacy, the exposure of services is far easier and quicker. In many cases, exposure of services requires just a few clicks and takes only minutes. In very complex cases, it still only takes half a day. Without OpenLegacy, it would take us several months to create the same services."
"OpenLegacy produces a war file which includes everything you need to deploy a Tomcat server."
"Opens the door to connect modern web products to an old legacy system."
 

Cons

"The automation and the simplicity could be improved."
"Automation for our Domino applications could be improved."
"There is room for improvement regarding the connectivity of the DevOps."
"Support for this platform could still be improved. It also needs to have more levels of versatility. Its compatibility and integration with different platforms also need improvement."
"We would have more capability to interact with the catalog and inventories, so a more DevOps-friendly solution is needed."
"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."
"We ran it on top of the Kubernetes cluster, so it wasn't a standalone service. In the worst-case scenario, API Connect couldn't stay online if all the containers went down. We had to restart all the services. We shut down all the containers automatically one by one."
"Extracting the data could be improved."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
"We would also be more than happy if the product had the option to work in the opposite direction – the ability to consume REST/SOW services in the outer world from the mainframe."
"Debugging and logging for programmers could be better."
"Customer support for the product is slow and not very good. It makes using the product difficult if you need help quickly."
"I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be."
"I would like to see SSL out-of-the-box. OpenLegacy certainly does SSL, but it was not the default for our use case. We are currently working with OpenLegacy to cross the SSL bridge and suspect that most users will want to do the same."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I haven't seen anyone go from on-premise to the cloud. In fact, I am seeing people go from the cloud to on-premise because the costs can quickly grow on the cloud."
"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"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 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."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"API Connect was highly expensive for us, but the decision to switch was made before I joined the company. It seems like the company bought it, but they didn't know how to use it. After two years, they decided to reevaluate and conduct some cost estimates."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
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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
37%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Many of openLegacy's global customers are among the Global 100 companies. Review case studies in these industries: Agriculture, Airport Authority, Automotive, Auto, Finance, Insurance, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Retailwww.openlegacy.com/case-studie...
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. OpenLegacy and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.