IBM API Connect vs SwaggerHub comparison

IBM and SmartBear are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while SmartBear is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 6.5% mindshare in APIM, compared to SmartBear’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of SmartBear users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 75 IBM API Connect reviews

9,857 Views
7,484 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SwaggerHub

Read 9 SwaggerHub reviews

2,322 Views
1,804 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM API Connect

SwaggerHub

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and SwaggerHub serve overlapping use cases in the API management sector, but IBM API Connect seems to have the upper hand for large enterprises due to its integration capabilities and scalability, while SwaggerHub is preferred for its superior design and ease of use.

Features: IBM API Connect provides robust lifecycle API management, secure gateway services, and detailed analytics, making it ideal for enterprises managing APIs in large environments. SwaggerHub focuses on collaborative API design with auto-generated documentation and seamless integration with popular development environments, making it essential for teams prioritizing precision.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect could enhance user interface simplicity and streamline excessive configuration steps, improving onboarding for new users. Expanding its documentation resources and enhancing tools for real-time monitoring are also areas to consider. SwaggerHub, while excellent in API design, could improve its scalability for larger enterprise needs, expand integration options beyond popular development environments, and offer more robust analytics capabilities to enhance decision-making insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect offers a flexible deployment model, supporting both cloud and on-premises setups, with extensive support for seamless integration. Its customer service is strong, ensuring smooth deployment processes. SwaggerHub's cloud-based approach simplifies deployment for agile teams, supported by efficient design-focused customer service channels.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect involves a higher initial setup cost but offers substantial ROI through its comprehensive API management capabilities, particularly for enterprises with large-scale needs. SwaggerHub's more accessible pricing allows for quicker ROI through efficient design tools and faster deployment, appealing to budget-conscious organizations focused on rapid development.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

January 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)

SwaggerHub

Ranking in API Management

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.5%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan

Solutions Architect at Synechron

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.

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Murahari Bandarupalli

Senior Consultant at Capgemini

Simplifies API design and development for developers

SwaggerHub simplifies API development for developers by providing a platform where they can efficiently create APIs without manually creating JSON or visual files. Developers can streamline the process of developing APIs and generating requests. SwaggerHub is a platform used for API design and management. Postman serves as a tool for creating and testing API requests. While Postman offers capabilities for scripting and automation, SwaggerHub focuses on defining APIs using the OpenAPI Specification, facilitating collaboration, and generating documentation automatically. While there may be ways to integrate Postman scripts into other testing tools like JMeter, such integration would typically require manual effort and customization. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 very good platform for the development of APIs."

"The functionalities on offer are very good."

"The solution is very scalable because it's on the cloud."

"The management of the API and API portal is good."

"Its speed and performance are valuable."

"It is a complete all-in-one solution."

"The services that I consume through IBM API Connect are beneficial. It can handle multiple API management."

More IBM API Connect pros

"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy and not at all difficult."

"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."

"It is quite a useful tool. It is quite good with the validation of the spec. It works quite well in terms of errors and conformity to the OpenAPI standard. It is better than Visual Studio Code in terms of editing."

"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."

"It is a stable solution."

"You can click & play and add the notation in a human-readable form. Spotlight is also very good in the graphical design of APIs."

"The scalability is endless."

Cons

"It is expensive within this class of products."

"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."

"The product's setup phase and its setup for the users in different environments, along with DevOps integration, are areas of concern where there is a need for improvement."

"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."

"The solution would be better if it had cloud functionalities."

"The solution is not scalable."

"Automation for our Domino applications could be improved."

"The new version is very unstable."

More IBM API Connect cons

"The review process should be improved. There seem to be some gaps, at least for us, for the editing part because we would like to have a full request review mechanism. They support some comments, but it is really hard to manage those comments. We would like to use the full request. Therefore, we are now looking to integrate with repositories. It has integration with Bitbucket and GitHub, but we have some internal constraints, and we need to move some of the repositories to GitHub. Our source code is on-premise in Bitbucket, and it was a bit of a problem for us to integrate. Now we are transitioning our repositories to GitHub, and hopefully, we can enable the integration. This will probably solve the problem with the review and approval. Its customization should also be improved. There are limitations around the support for the developer portal. There should be more customization options for the website that you can use as a developer portal. Currently, it has only Swagger UI with minimal customization. You cannot actually add additional pages and documentation for explaining concepts and general things. That's why we have started to look around to see what other tools are doing. They should also allow tagging on the API. We would like to add some tagging on the API to reflect certain things. Currently, any metadata that you would like to have has to be a part of the spec. You cannot do anything else. It should also have support for Open API 3.1, which was released at the beginning of the year. It would be great to be able to switch to that."

"SwaggerHub could be improved with better integration for tools."

"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."

"We have to use additional tools to test APIs."

"SwaggerHub's UI needs to be improved as it looks very old school."

"It has limited functionality...Unfortunately, some of its features are not what we need."

"More integration and usability with the cloud microservices would be nice"

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."

"It's an expensive product."

"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."

"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."

"Pricing for IBM API Connect varies, e.g. it could be subscription-based. Deploying it on private cloud also means you have to own most of the software licensing."

"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."

"It is quite an expensive product."

"It is a pretty expensive tool."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cheap."

"It has a yearly subscription, but I am not sure."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about SwaggerHub?

The tool's most valuable feature is licensing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?

I noticed that the editor on SwaggerHub, like Gabbiti, is graphical in nature. With this mind map interface, one can easily define endpoints and paths. The solution is lacking behind because it not...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?

When you want to define an API with your customers using SwaggerHub, you first interact with them to understand their requirements. Then, you proceed to build the API definition. This involves crea...

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Comparisons

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Compared 25% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 16% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs SwaggerHub

Compared 31% of the time

Apigee vs SwaggerHub

Compared 24% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 9% of the time

Stoplight vs SwaggerHub

Compared 7% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 4% of the time

More SwaggerHub Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

January 2025

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

January 2025

Download SwaggerHub product report

Overview

IBM API Connect facilitates API management and integration in the financial sector. Companies use it to expose, secure, and manage APIs for banking, insurance, and fintech, deploying it on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution.

IBM API Connect focuses on creating and monetizing APIs while enabling seamless transactions and integration with third-party services. It is vital for compliance with regulations and enhances external communication among institutions. With deployment options suitable for different environments, it supports centralized gateway management, robust security features, and comprehensive API lifecycle management. Users benefit from powerful analytics, user-friendly interfaces, and high performance with capabilities in message transformation and efficient monitoring.

What are the most important features?

Centralized Gateway: Manages all APIs through a single entry point.
Robust Security: Ensures API protection with advanced security measures.
Comprehensive API Lifecycle Management: Covers creation, deployment, and retirement of APIs.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies API creation and management tasks.
Powerful Analytics: Provides insights into API usage and performance.
Seamless Integration: Connects easily with third-party services and internal systems.
Flexible Deployment Options: Supports on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
High Performance: Optimizes API performance and reduces latency.
Message Transformation: Manipulates and formats messages between different systems.
Visualization Tools: Enables clear and detailed views of API usage statistics.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

API Monetization: Generates additional revenue streams from APIs.
Enhanced Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry regulations and standards.
Improved External Communication: Facilitates integration and communication among financial institutions.
Technical Support: Benefit from reliable customer support and easy configuration.
Deployment Flexibility: Choose from on-premises, cloud, or hybrid options.

IBM API Connect is extensively implemented in the financial sector, enabling banking, insurance, and fintech services to manage APIs efficiently. Companies use it to ensure secure transactions, integration with third-party services, and compliance with regulatory standards. Its deployment flexibility accommodates different infrastructure needs, making it suitable for a wide range of financial applications.

IBM

SwaggerHub is an integrated API Development platform, built for teams, that brings the core capabilities of the Swagger framework to design, build, document and deploy APIs. SwaggerHub enables development teams to collaborate and coordinate the entire lifecycle of an API with the flexibility to integrate with the toolset of your choice.

SmartBear

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

January 2025

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

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