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IBM App Connect vs webMethods.io comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
webMethods.io
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), API Management (10th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM App Connect is 4.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 4.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Integration
 

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.
Michele Illiano - PeerSpot reviewer
Can function as an ESB along with the core product, with decent integration of message protocols
I have noticed that webMethods ActiveTransfer has had problems when handling large files. For example, when we receive (and perform operations on) files that are larger than about 16 MB, the software starts losing performance. This is why, for most customers who have to deal with big files, I suggest that they use a product other than ActiveTransfer. I would like to note that this problem mainly concerns large files that undergo extra operations, such assigning, unassigning, or file translation. When these operations take place on large files, ActiveTransfer will use up a lot of resources. Within the product itself, I also believe that there is room for improvement in terms of optimization when it comes to general performance. I suspect that the issues underlying poor optimization are because it is all developed in Java. That is, all the objects and functions that are used need to be better organized, especially when it comes to big files but also overall. webMethods ActiveTransfer was born as an ESB to handle messages, and these messages were typically very short, i.e. small in size. A message is data that you have to send to an application, where it must be received in real-time and possibly processed or acknowledged elsewhere in the system as well. So, because it was initially designed for small messages, it struggles with performance when presented with very large files. All this to say, I suggest that they have an engineer reevaluate the architecture of the product in order to consider cases where large files are sent, and not only small ones. As for new features, compared to other products in the market, I think Software AG should be more up to date when it comes to extra protocol support, especially those protocols that other solutions have included in their products by default. Whenever we need to add an unsupported protocol, we have to go through the effort of custom development in order to work with it. Also, all the banks are obligated to migrate to the new standards, and big companies are all handling translations and operating their libraries with the new protocol formats. But webMethods ActiveTransfer doesn't seem to be keeping up with this evolution. Thus, they should aim to be more compliant in future, along the lines of their competitors such as IBM and Primeur.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It has different type of interfaces that can integrate with companies."
"It's stable to use, connect with the cloud, and to deploy."
"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."
"Technical support is good."
"I would say that the most valuable feature is the array of connectors and integration tools."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"When using IBM stacks, IBM App Connect is suitable and integrates well with other IBM products like WebSphere."
"Provides good security features."
"It has a good integration server, designer, and a very good API portal."
"ActiveTransfer lets us maintain the file in the staging area before we transfer it. After that, we can remove the file to make sure that the reconciliation process is done. Sometimes we will zip and unzip the files, but if we have a GKB file, we often ignore it."
"The cloud version of the solution is very easy to set up."
"The product is very stable."
"The development is very fast. If you know what you're doing, you can develop something very easily and very fast."
"It's easy to construct new interfaces like apps and client portals."
"When it comes to the user interface, I'm already really used to it. I cannot say anything against it. For me, it's easy to use."
"There were no complexities involved in the setup phase...The product is able to meet my company's API protection needs."
 

Cons

"The installation of containers could be simplified, as it currently requires a senior-level installer."
"The addition of string functionality would be a benefit, particularly in the ESQL space that IBM already uses internally."
"IBM needs to enhance and have a stronger offering for the event streaming part because this is the future needed for the containerization and the new integration requirement."
"IBM App Connect is scalable. From the administration side, they need to improve the RBAC model, as well as the clustering of this product. It will be good if we can start up the cluster, via IBM Connect Console. Some other products like MuleSoft, are providing this type of administration. MuleSoft is easy to use and user friendly."
"They reply in one or two hours at most, but they could be better."
"The setup time for App Connect could be improved."
"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."
"Documentation needs tuning. There is a lot of dependency with SoftwareAG. Even with the documentation at hand, you can struggle to implement scenarios without SAG’s help. By contrast, IBM’s documentation is self-explanatory, in my opinion."
"The solution has big instances when deployed under microservices or in a containerized platform. They need to improve that so that it is competitive with other integration solutions, like Redis and Kafka. Deployments under microservices with those solutions are much more lightweight, in the size of the runtime itself, compared with Software AG."
"On the monitoring side of things, the UI for monitoring could be improved. It's a bit cumbersome to work with."
"I would like to have a dashboard where I can see all of the communication between components and the configuration."
"Prices should be reduced, ideally by up to 30% for long-term customers like us."
"It would be nice if they had a change management system offering. We built our own deployer application because the one built into webMethods couldn't enforce change management rules. Integration into a change management system, along with the version control system, would be a good offering; it's something that they're lacking."
"webMethods Integration Server could improve on the version control. I'm not sure if Web Method has some kind of inbuilt integration with Bitbucket or GitHub or some kind of version control system. However, that's one area where they can improve."
"The Software AG Designer could be more memory-efficient or CPU-efficient so that we can use it with middle-spec hardware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"The price could be better."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"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."
"Currently, the licensing solution for this product is pretty straightforward. The way that Software AG has moved in their licensing agreements is very understandable. It is very easy for you to see where things land. Like most vendors today, they are transaction based. Therefore, just having a good understanding of how many transactions that you are doing a year would be very wise. Luckily, there are opportunities to work with the vendor to get a good understanding of how many transactions you have and what is the right limit for you to fall under."
"It is worth the cost."
"Sometimes we don't have a very clear idea what the licensing will entail at first, because it can be very customizable. On one hand, this can be a good thing, because it can be tailored to a specific customer's needs. But on the other hand it can also be an issue when some customer asks, "What's the cost?" and we can't yet give them an accurate answer."
"The pricing is a yearly license."
"webMethods Trading Networks is a bit costly compared to others solutions."
"I am not involved in the licensing side of things."
"The vendor is flexible with respect to pricing."
"I don’t have much idea about prices, but webMethods API Portal is not something cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
7%
 

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 Built.io Flow?
The tool helps us to streamline data integration. Its BPM is very strong and powerful. The solution helps us manage digital transformation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them.
What needs improvement with Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience.
 

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron
Built.io Flow, webMethods Integration Server, webMethods Trading Networks, webMethods ActiveTransfer, webMethods.io API
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.