IBM API Connect vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

IBM and WSO2 are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3, while WSO2 is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 6.0% mindshare in APIM, compared to WSO2’s 4.7% 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 77 IBM API Connect reviews

6,620 Views
6,421 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

WSO2 API Manager

Read 41 WSO2 API Manager reviews

4,899 Views
4,899 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. WSO2 API Manager

September 2025

Download the complete report

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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:

ROI

Sentiment score

7.0

IBM API Connect streamlines integration, boosts security, and optimizes costs, providing significant ROI within two years.

Sentiment score

7.6

WSO2 API Manager offers high ROI with cost efficiency, operational improvements, and valuable support, though perceptions may vary.

Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

I have seen a return on investment from using IBM API Connect, as we created multiple plans based on customer usage.

Sairathish Murugesan

Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.2

IBM API Connect support is praised for expertise but experiences vary, with feedback noting delays and documentation improvements needed.

Sentiment score

6.6

Customer service varies with subscription level, with helpful responses often, while open-source users rely on forums and documentation.

Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

The support is good, with well-defined documentation and helpful blogs.

AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

IBM API Connect offers robust cloud scalability with high user ratings, supporting large transactions and diverse integrations effectively.

Sentiment score

7.5

WSO2 API Manager is scalable, supporting container deployments, horizontal and vertical scaling, but involves manual provisioning challenges.

With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

IBM API Connect's scalability is good, as you can handle it easily similar to how you manage cloud providers.

Sairathish Murugesan

Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.3

IBM API Connect is stable and reliable, with minor past issues resolved, rated highly in diverse sectors.

Sentiment score

7.3

WSO2 API Manager is stable with minor issues, quick bug fixes, and high ratings, benefiting from Tomcat's foundation.

The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

If it is functioning well, you won't have a bad experience and your application becomes more reliable.

Sairathish Murugesan

Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

The system is stable for our low-concurrency use cases.

AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Room For Improvement

Users seek improvements in integration, documentation, security, cloud functionality, cost, scalability, and customization for IBM API Connect.

WSO2 API Manager requires UI improvements, better documentation, competitive pricing, enhanced support, and solutions for stability, performance, and integration issues.

Following this approach, you should be able to optimize costs and satisfy customer experience.

Sairathish Murugesan

Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

Our integrations do not handle high-volume transactions.

AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect is costly but feature-rich, with price negotiations possible; smaller firms might prefer open-source alternatives.

WSO2 API Manager offers an open-source version and a subscription model, with costs varying based on features and usage.

Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect offers robust security, flexible management, seamless integration, and efficient development, enhancing API lifecycle and control.

WSO2 API Manager provides robust security, flexibility, scalability, and powerful integration with user-friendly features for seamless API management.

It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.

KANCHAN CHALASANI

Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.

We can add some policies to provide extra security, protect your backend, validate the consumers, and analyze based on the traffic limit to throw things out.

Sairathish Murugesan

Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM API Connect report

The product's capabilities for integrating with REST APIs are valuable.

AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the WSO2 API Manager report

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect

Ranking in API Management

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)

WSO2 API Manager

Ranking in API Management

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 API Manager is 4.7%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
WSO2 API Manager	4.7%
IBM API Connect	6.0%
Other	89.3%

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.

Read full review

AnilKumar40

Senior Principal Architect at 6d Technologies

Effortless integration with REST APIs enhances business process management

The product's capabilities for integrating with REST APIs are valuable. We use API key-based security integration, where API keys are exchanged between the REST APIs. This ensures security. In the future, we might also use OAuth-based integration. Internally, the business process manager allows us to define the process and integrate with it. Additionally, the capability to define processes and seamless integration with APIs enhances our operations.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Insurance Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	59

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	21

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?

Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments. I don't deal with licensing, but compared to other IBM products, the licensing is not significantly higher.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?

When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ ( /categories/message-queue-mq...

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?

We have encountered some concerns with concurrency. Our integrations do not handle high-volume transactions, and when benchmarking, some issues arose with concurrent testing. It is uncertain whethe...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?

We use WSO2 API Manager ( /products/wso2-api-manager-reviews ) to integrate our telecom products with third-party REST APIs. We are orchestrating services where our business process defines the int...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 27% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 13% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

Tyk vs IBM API Connect

Compared 1% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 20% of the time

Apigee vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 17% of the time

Apache APISIX vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 10% of the time

SAP Integration Suite vs WSO2 API Manager

Compared 2% of the time

More WSO2 API Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

October 2025

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

WSO2 API Manager

September 2025

Download WSO2 API Manager product report

Overview

IBM API Connect is an API management tool providing robust security, seamless REST and SOAP conversion, and flexible deployment options for diverse cloud environments. It aids organizations in securing and monetizing their APIs while streamlining the development process.

IBM API Connect offers features like a security gateway, API lifecycle management, and integration with DataPower. Its intuitive interface enhances ease of use, supporting extensive analytics and traffic management. However, there are areas for improvement in automation, system integration, and user configuration. Organizations can deploy API Connect on-premises or in the cloud, delivering secure access control and analytics for banking, financial services, and government sectors. Compliance with standards like PSD2 ensures secure external API exposure and integration with multiple systems.

What are the most important features of IBM API Connect?

Security Gateway: Provides robust protection and data security for APIs.
Seamless Conversion: Facilitates easy conversion between REST and SOAP protocols.
API Management: Supports full API lifecycle management for efficient development.
DataPower Integration: Integrates seamlessly with DataPower for enhanced functionality.
Developer Portal: Offers a user-friendly interface for managing APIs and developers.
Analytics: Delivers powerful insights through comprehensive API analytics.
Flexible Deployment: Supports deployment on different cloud platforms for versatility.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from IBM API Connect?

Traffic Management: Efficiently manages high volumes of API traffic without compromising performance.
Data Protection: Ensures data is protected during API communication.
API Monetization: Facilitates API monetization strategies to drive revenue.
Scalability: Provides scalable solutions to handle growing demands seamlessly.

In specific industries like banking, financial services, and government sectors, IBM API Connect plays a crucial role in API management, orchestration, and regulation tasks. It provides secure access, control, and compliance with industry standards, serving as an essential gateway for data exchange and integration across multiple systems.

IBM

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.

WSO2

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

September 2025

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