IBM App Connect vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Cloud Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.2, while Salesforce is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.1. IBM holds a 4.2% mindshare in CDI, compared to Salesforce’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM App Connect

Read 23 IBM App Connect reviews

1,843 Views
1,010 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Read 57 MuleSoft Anypoint Platform reviews

3,392 Views
2,189 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM App Connect

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 8, 2024

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and IBM App Connect compete in the integration platform category, focusing on API management and iPaaS solutions. MuleSoft possesses an edge due to its ease of use, rapid deployment, and strong performance.

Features: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers extensive iPaaS and API management capabilities with numerous connectors for seamless application integration. It supports both cloud-based and on-premises deployments, providing flexible enterprise service bus configurations. MuleSoft is renowned for its ease in API development and management, offering robust security features. IBM App Connect provides extensive integration features, supporting multiple communication technologies with strong security. It excels in scalability and connecting diverse systems through its vast array of connectors. Its strengths include integration within the IBM ecosystem and reliability in security.

Room for Improvement: MuleSoft users often cite cost as a concern, with a need for a more transparent pricing model. There are suggestions for enhancements in runtime management, batch processing, and technical support response. Improved community resources and simplified setup could enhance accessibility. IBM App Connect users report a need for improvements in logging, lifecycle management, and CI/CD capabilities. Both platforms would benefit from additional connectors to support new technologies and cloud solutions. IBM users also express a need for better customer support integration and community-building efforts.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers flexible deployment options, supporting public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. Its customer service is considered reliable, although some users prefer community support. IBM App Connect supports on-premises and cloud deployments and is noted for robust customer service, aligning closely with enterprise requirements. IBM's support is highlighted as more structured and responsive, although areas for improvement remain.

Pricing and ROI: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is considered expensive, with a complex pricing model potentially deterring smaller businesses. Despite this, it offers significant ROI through reduced maintenance and effective API management. IBM App Connect is also costly, with high licensing fees but flexible consumption options. Both platforms show positive ROI for enterprises, emphasizing reduced total cost of ownership and increased operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM App Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM App Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

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 App Connect

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Message Queue (MQ) Software (4th), Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (8th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM App Connect is 4.2%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 7.2%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi

Co-Founder at tenekit

Offers flexible adapters, good scalability but logging can be difficult at times

There is room for improvement in the logging messages. Sometimes, if you put someone new into App Connect, they can abandon it the same day. The logging is really painful. However, IBM has made efforts to integrate with Elasticsearch for logging, so that's an improvement. Overall, the logging can be difficult at times. One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient. Back in 2013, I worked with Sonic ESB, and even then, it had CI/CD with Maven. With App Connect, you need to build everything yourself when using tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, or CircleCI. IBM really needs to provide official support for this.

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Vijay Subramanyam

Delivery Head at cblsolutions

Robust, reliable, and stable, ensuring high availability for critical integrations

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten; it is a highly scalable solution. We have around 200 end users using this solution in our company. We use it to its maximum capacity. However, it's not for P1 applications, but definitely for severity two cases (P2 level). It integrates critical applications, but it's not a platform that, if it stops, the entire system would come down. So, it's more like a severity two level. However, it has the potential to eventually become a P1 platform. Not exactly P1 applications, but a P1 platform. Because now we are still in the transition to migrate everything, all the integrations to Mule Anypoint Platform. But once it's done, then this platform becomes critical. Because even now, we have point-to-point connections.

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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

"The solution is fast and supports Open UI 3.0 certification."

"Very scalable, flexible, and user-friendly."

"Provides good security features."

"Technical support is good."

"The most valuable feature is the security."

"App Connect's best feature is that it can be deployed in a container."

"It's stable to use, connect with the cloud, and to deploy."

"It's a powerful application for collaboration. It has many features for customization and integration."

More IBM App Connect pros

"It is a stable product...The initial setup was simple."

"MuleSoft's integration with Salesforce products makes it a preferred choice for those setups."

"The most valuable features for us are flexibility, all the features related to connectivity with multiple connectors to the business, and the flexibility of on-premises and cloud deployments."

"The most valuable feature of Anypoint MQ is it comes with MuleSoft so we don't have to maintain separate components."

"This is the easiest and best tool available."

"Overall, it is a pretty good product. It is also very scalable."

"Mule Anypoint Platform's valuable features are its flexibility in terms of deployment and its SaaS capabilities."

"Initially, we faced challenges managing numerous scheduled jobs and duplicate entries in our SAP system. To address this, we developed a reusable component in Mule that all applications could use to interact with SAP."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform pros

Cons

"The addition of string functionality would be a benefit, particularly in the ESQL space that IBM already uses internally."

"Plugins for the repositories are difficult to find."

"Finding developers for the product is difficult since it is a niche solution. I know the OpenShift environment is running well for the microservice environment. We had some issues with the other environment we tried to implement. It can be easily implemented internally, but we have some problems in practice."

"More connectors could be available for the product as some of the third-party software doesn't have default connectors."

"The installation of containers could be simplified, as it currently requires a senior-level installer."

"Updates are constantly delayed."

"The product should improve its support."

"IBM App Connect should improve security features."

More IBM App Connect cons

"I would like to see some data integration and automation."

"One area we'd like to see improvement in is the error logging and troubleshooting process."

"The pricing can be a little bit less."

"What I hear from my customers is that it's very expensive compared to the cost of other integration suites. The cost keeps increasing. MuleSoft should come up with customization factors by using a different way of getting the cost-related stuff to attract customers. That is, they should come up with some cost optimizations."

"Mule Anypoint Platform could improve by having better integration with MDM. There are challenges when doing the interaction at this time."

"The solution's licensing methodologies could be improved."

"The terms of use and how it's priced has become very difficult to manage, which is forcing us to look for alternatives already - and we haven't even been using it for that long just yet."

"The runtime management and connectors could use some work and are vulnerable to breakage after upgrades."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."

"App Connect is not cheap."

"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."

"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."

"The cost depends upon the consumer."

"It is very expensive if we want to scale."

"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."

"The price could be better."

"I can't give you a straightforward answer because sometimes it depends on the usage. If you're going to have fewer than 5 million messages, it is free of cost. If you're going to have more than 5 million messages, they're going to charge $100 per month"

"The solution has a high price."

"The tool's pricing is cheaper than other RPAs' since it is execution-based. Other RPAs charge based on subscriptions."

"The product comes complete at one set price including support."

"Mule Anypoint Platform is an expensive solution."

"MuleSoft Anypoint Platform really needs to work on its pricing model because it's very complicated."

"Price-wise, it is a good product since it is reasonably priced."

"Mule Anypoint Platform is affordable."

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

58%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM App Connect?

I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?

IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?

Our company has a big project for delivery and e-commerce sites. We use IBM App Connect to deliver information to our end users after they buy our products. We get information from many places, suc...

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What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?

I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...

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How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...

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What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?

This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...

See all answers

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM App Connect

February 2025

Download IBM App Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

February 2025

Download MuleSoft Anypoint Platform product report

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron

Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ

Overview

Rapidly connect public clouds, private clouds and on-premises application

App Connect Professional is IBM’s cloud integration offering which delivers an integration solution
• With ease-of-use, flexibility and increased responsiveness to the evolving business needs, while removing the daunting complexities of integration.
• Provides the powerful combination of a ‘simple integration experience’ for business users looking to automate how their applications talk to each other; coupled with a ‘configuration based integration’ approach for IT.
• App Connect Professional is for the teams and integration developers who need to solve more complex problems and need powerful tooling for integration scenarios

IBM

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is used for integration and API management, connecting enterprise applications across retail, e-commerce, and supply chain. It supports cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premises scenarios with real-time and asynchronous messaging.

Users leverage MuleSoft Anypoint Platform for diverse integrations including cloud-based and on-premises, enabling data transformations, middleware functions, and hybrid integrations. It seamlessly connects systems like SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle, facilitating data transfers and integrating legacy systems. The platform offers a graphic interface, quick implementation, and a variety of connectors, contributing to its popularity for robust and scalable solutions. Despite its strengths, users seek better technical support, more connectors, simplified runtime management, and improved documentation.

What are the key features of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform?

Marketplace for integration platforms: Provides pre-built connectors and templates.
API management: Efficient management and monitoring of APIs.
Graphic interface: User-friendly design for ease of use.
Monitoring capabilities: Comprehensive monitoring and observability features.
Quick implementation: Rapid deployment of integrations and APIs.
Pre-built templates: Ready-to-use templates for common integrations.
Stability and performance: Reliable and high-performing platform.
Data transformation with DataWeave: Powerful tool for data mapping and transformation.
Support for hybrid deployments: Flexibility to integrate cloud and on-premises systems.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Increased connectivity: Seamless integration of multiple systems.
Operational efficiency: Streamlined processes and data flows.
Scalability: Ability to grow with business needs.
Cost savings: Reduced development time with pre-built components.
Enhanced visibility: Improved monitoring and management of integrations.

Enterprises in retail, e-commerce, and supply chain implement MuleSoft Anypoint Platform to connect various applications and systems. It supports real-time messaging for inventory management, synchronizes customer data across platforms, and integrates with legacy systems for smooth data migration. Users benefit from quick deployments and a marketplace that accelerates integration projects.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.

VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren

Buyer's Guide

IBM App Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

January 2025

Free Report: IBM App Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

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