IBM API Connect vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

IBM and WSO2 are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while WSO2 is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.9. IBM holds a 6.5% mindshare in APIM, compared to WSO2’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of WSO2 users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 75 IBM API Connect reviews

10,271 Views
7,795 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

WSO2 API Manager

Read 40 WSO2 API Manager reviews

7,438 Views
5,278 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM API Connect

WSO2 API Manager

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and WSO2 API Manager compete in the API management category. IBM API Connect seems to have an upper hand due to its robust security and integration features.

Features: IBM API Connect offers extensive integration capabilities within IBM's ecosystem, significant security features like DataPower Gateway, and OAuth support. It also excels in securing and optimizing API access, and includes comprehensive analytics and a customizable developer portal. WSO2 API Manager is praised for its open-source nature and flexibility, offering seamless integration with various platforms, lifecycle management features, and ease of customization for its developer portal.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect could improve by enhancing integration with non-IBM platforms, simplifying complex user interfaces, and addressing setup difficulties. WSO2 API Manager needs to overcome installation challenges, enhance its user interface for better usability, and provide better documentation and support for non-Java platform integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect is versatile in deployment options, suitable for on-premises and cloud environments, though some find its setup complex. Customer service is generally responsive, but documentation clarity needs improvement. WSO2 API Manager supports diverse deployment models and is cost-effective due to its open-source advantage. However, WSO2's technical support resources require enhancement.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect is seen as costly with pricing based on PVU or consumption models, mainly benefiting larger enterprises with substantial integration needs. Its ROI emerges post extensive integration. WSO2 API Manager offers a cost-effective alternative being open source, with additional charges for enterprise support, aligning well with cost-conscious businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM API Connect vs. WSO2 API Manager Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. WSO2 API Manager

December 2024

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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) (8th)

WSO2 API Manager

Ranking in API Management

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

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 WSO2 API Manager is 4.8%, up from 4.1% 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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Ritesh_Shah

Senior Solution Architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

A complete platform for building, integrating, and exposing your digital services as managed APIs in the cloud, on-premise, and hybrid architectures to drive your digital transformation strategy.

WSO2 API Manager could improve by adding external API security features, which is one area where there is room for enhancement. Internally, API security is strong, and all other necessary features are already available. It has a solid marketplace, supports both Docker and standalone setups, and offers great enterprise integration. The developer portal has greatly improved the user experience, making it simple and user-friendly wherever we’ve implemented it. Overall, it’s not as complicated as other API gateways.

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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

"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."

"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."

"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."

"The solution's technical support team is good."

"We are able to share those APIs instantly within the organization; even if we want to share it outside publicly, then we can have those capabilities."

"API Connect is a very good platform for the development of APIs."

"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to distribute work among our API developers, so we don't have to do all the work as IBM API Connect administrators and IBM DataPower administrators."

"In-built policies and security functions."

More IBM API Connect pros

"Helped us to quickly publish our Microservice APIs and enforcing different policies against them, it comes up with features like Security, Throttling policy and it provides complete access to customize API's which actually saves development effort and time."

"The solution is open source and easy to configure."

"WSO2 is very stable."

"We use the vanilla version of the WSO2 API Manager and integrate additional features ourselves. The basic features of the API Manager, such as blacklisting and whitelisting, are very helpful. We also created dashboards."

"WSO2 API Manager has a user-friendly model."

"The flexibility is definitely a highlight. We have flexible mapping capabilities, allowing us to provide common mappings or create custom ones as needed."

"One of the great things about WSO2 API Manager is that it is so easy to adopt. And because it's an open source solution, we're able to extend the implementation any time to suit our company needs better."

"Based on the information I have, the solution's most valuable feature is its capability of implementing custom solutions."

More WSO2 API Manager pros

Cons

"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 solution is not scalable."

"Extracting the data could be improved."

"There are some performance issues and issues related to asynchronous APIs."

"Documentation for the CLI is not very complete. Also, the support could be improved, and we have had several problems with backing up and restoring the product."

"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."

"The initial setup and installation could be easier."

"In terms of what needs improvement, some of the product documentation could be better."

More IBM API Connect cons

"The interface needs to be modernized and made more user friendly so the product continues to have a growing community of users."

"The user interface needs to improve, it is a bit outdated."

"Dashboards for application monitoring of the APIs would be beneficial, allowing us to check for faulty APIs."

"For fresh graduates and engineers, the setup process can be very difficult."

"The solution could be more user friendly for engineers."

"Based on our recent large scaling project, the latency needs to be improved."

"The product hasn’t been updated for some time."

"I can say that user management is not really flexible. So, if I want to create 1,000 store users, I can't do it as a publisher. You have to register as a store user using the store URL."

More WSO2 API Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a pretty expensive tool."

"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."

"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 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 pricing is significantly high."

"It is quite an expensive product."

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

"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"The challenge is the increasing pricing, which has led some customers to consider alternatives, like using Spring Boot solutions instead. The rising costs, especially as cores and usage increase, have been a concern, prompting some to migrate to other products."

"It's not expensive, but it could be cheaper."

"For our projects, we found the pricing to be a little high."

"It is costly, around ten thousand per year, per instance"

"We have not opted for the paid version of WSO2 but we have implemented the free and open source WSO2 software to a great extent and it is working as per our expectation."

"I am using the free version."

"WSO2 API Manager is quite an expensive tool. I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is high."

"My previous company paid about 1.2 million dollars, and my current company pays about 300k. Both companies are at the enterprise level."

More WSO2 API Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Financial Services Firm

19%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

15%

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.

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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...

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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 WSO2 API Manager?

It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability.

See all answers

What needs improvement with WSO2 API Manager?

One area for improvement is monitoring. Dashboards for application monitoring of the APIs would be beneficial, allowing us to check for faulty APIs.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?

We use WSO2 API Manager for our microservices and our APIs, both internally and externally.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 24% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 23% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 16% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Cloud Platform vs IBM API Connect

Compared 1% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Apigee vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 25% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 14% of the time

Apache APISIX vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 14% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY API Management vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 1% of the time

More WSO2 API Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

December 2024

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

WSO2 API Manager

November 2024

Download WSO2 API Manager product report

Learn More

IBM

WSO2

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.

WSO2 API Manager is a comprehensive platform that allows organizations to design, publish, and manage APIs.

It provides a centralized interface for API governance, security, and analytics.

With features like API monetization and developer portal, it enables businesses to drive innovation and create new revenue streams.

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

1. eBay 2. StubHub 3. Cisco 4. Verizon 5. T-Mobile 6. Vodafone 7. Orange 8. BT Group 9. Telstra 10. Deutsche Telekom 11. Swisscom 12. AT&T 13. Sprint 14. Telefonica 15. O2 16. British Airways 17. Lufthansa 18. Emirates 19. Qatar Airways 20. Etihad Airways 21. Air France 22. KLM 23. American Express 24. Visa 25. Mastercard 26. PayPal 27. Western Union 28. Citibank 29. HSBC 30. Barclays 31. Santander 32. Goldman Sachs

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. WSO2 API Manager

December 2024

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