Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM App Connect vs SAP Replication Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (11th)
SAP Replication Server
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (18th), Data Integration (30th)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Imran  Rafi - PeerSpot reviewer
Foolproof stability and robust system
SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience. One of its notable features is real-time replication, which ensures that data changes are replicated immediately. This is particularly advantageous when we need to execute full processes promptly.

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 very fast-paced when it comes to making things right. We can quickly download what we need if we need any app migrations for our software business. We can download it plenty of times when we need to use it. It gives us very high speed for delivering any development."
"One of the most beneficial features is the ability to handle multiple communication technologies, like integrating Kafka flows, which is helpful as other teams heavily use it. Regarding error handling, I initially wrote most of the handling myself. While built-in features for error handling are built-in, it largely depends on the developer. We use a custom solution that catches all exceptions, logs them in a database, and replays them as needed. It has been effective for us for over twenty years."
"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 likely an adapter for that."
"When using IBM stacks, IBM App Connect is suitable and integrates well with other IBM products like WebSphere."
"It's a powerful application for collaboration. It has many features for customization and integration."
"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."
"The solution is fast and supports Open UI 3.0 certification."
"It's pretty good at handling replication, even under high load. It also provides cross-database replication, for example, from Sybase to Oracle."
"SAP is renovating different things. We are using external tools to connect as of now. It is going well, and now the new generation integration platforms are going to be pretty easy."
"SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience."
"We can customize any workflow and we also like the business domain modeling that can be done."
"It speeds up the performance in terms of how fast you are able to access the data, look at it, get it reported to you, and send it to somebody. It also reduces the amount of storage."
 

Cons

"The user interface of IBM App Connect can be a little bit more user-friendly, I would say because the first-time developer is onboarded while using IBM App Connect, he or she may get a little intimidated or daunted looking at all the options available or the pipelines, et cetera."
"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."
"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."
"When we do a version upgrade of the system, the platform is kind of complicated."
"The setup time for App Connect could be improved."
"The installation of containers could be simplified, as it currently requires a senior-level installer."
"The product should improve its support."
"More connectors could be available for the product as some of the third-party software doesn't have default connectors."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing and faster support."
"Improvement is a never ending story, and HANA is doing some improvements. We are able to adopt that, and we have to do it by integration with HANA. They are very major changes that we need to see."
"I would like to see it become mobile-friendly."
"If someone wants to replicate their data from Sybase to a newer technology for data warehousing or other purposes, it would be better if they supported those."
"The private solution is expensive. If you're in a situation where you're paying IBM or AWS or somebody just to host you specifically, you're paying people to run it and you're taking care of all the upgrades."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"The price could be better."
"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."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"You can pick one of the hosted cloud services as opposed to owning it and doing it yourself. Your cost of ownership on the hardware, the data storage, and the maintenance all go down. It depends on what service you use."
"It's a very expensive solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.
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...
What do you like most about SAP Replication Server?
SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience.
What needs improvement with SAP Replication Server?
SAP can provide better support for cross-database replication to newer technologies. The product supports Oracle, but I am not aware of what other technologies it supports. If someone wants to repl...
 

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron
Sybase Replication Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. SAP Replication Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.