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IBM API Connect vs Tyk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)
Tyk
Ranking in API Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, 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 Tyk is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MarkDoherty - PeerSpot reviewer
Fastest to get up and running and fewer idiosyncrasies than competitors
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them. But as a product, it's very difficult to find any major faults.

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."
"DataPower Gateway holds significant value for us as it serves as the cornerstone of our enterprise security controls."
"The interface is very nice. It makes the solution easy to use and navigate."
"The technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."
"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."
"I have found the API Management to be most valuable."
"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."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."
"It is a good product for API management."
"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."
"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."
"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."
"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."
 

Cons

"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"The solution is overly complex."
"The developmental process is not quite user-friendly."
"The automation and the simplicity could be improved."
"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."
"They seem to have left out a feature for microservices and also a certification module for OIDC."
"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."
"The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit."
"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."
"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."
"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."
"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."
"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."
"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"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."
"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."
"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."
"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"There are different versions and plans available depending on the requirements, so there is flexibility in terms of the pricing."
"It had a free version, which suited many of our needs, but not all, but we were happy to go ahead with the licensed version as well, which is the paid version."
"We are using the open-source version of this product, so there are no licensing costs for its use."
"The price is low compared to other products of a similar type."
"The cost curve is far smoother, both in terms of volume and the number of calls it's running on, compared to most competitors. So it's a tad more expensive at the very low end, but the curve is nothing like Apigee or some of the others."
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817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
18%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
7%
 

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?
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.
What do you like most about Tyk?
The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tyk?
The pricing is actually quite competitive. In Azure environments, it gets beaten by Microsoft API Gateway, but on the other hand, it offers some features that Microsoft lacks. So it really comes do...
What needs improvement with Tyk?
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly ...
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Trip Advisor, Juniper Networks, AT&T
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Tyk and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.