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

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM Integration Bus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (7th)
IBM Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.2%, up from 20.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"The message queue feature is very valuable."
"The Cloud Pak for Integration is a useful feature."
"The product is a user-customized tool so that you can adjust it to your specific needs pretty well with little trouble."
"It allows us to avoid the need for consumers to understand multiple API protocols and security arrangements, and in some circumstances can reduce the impact of systems being unavailable."
"From a performance point of view, it's very good and it doesn't need very much in terms of CPU resources."
"REST API design and development support are useful. Building and exposing APIs using GUI API designer with editor makes implementation a breeze."
"IBM Integration Bus's best feature is integration."
"The message queue connectors are the most valuable feature. They have built-in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP and Oracle Database."
 

Cons

"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"Its support services could be better."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"It is a costly product."
"They should add connectors to banking applications and other specific industries."
"I believe there is room for improvement in the pricing structure to make it more accessible."
"IBM Integration Bus isn't particularly user-friendly and has a big learning curve."
"The product does not provide API management."
"There is room for improvement in providing more specific error messages and error criteria."
"IBM doesn't really have a very strong community surrounding the product. Most of its direct competitors are open source solutions, and those have an excellent and well-developed community around the tech to help users navigate the ins and outs of the product. IBM is lacking in this area."
"They could integrate AI technologies with the product. Additionally, ongoing developments and enhancements in integration technologies could be beneficial."
"Development toolkit (based on Eclipse) should be improved in terms of responsiveness."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"IBM Integration Bus solution is expensive and this is one of the reasons we are looking for an alternative, such as MuleSoft."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
"For small companies, First of all, there are a lot of free products that could be used for integration. It can use the cloud or new implementation in the past. But if the tool is IBM, the official box in your company, you can make your submission and also publish the cloud to the work file. But let’s say, if you are working with premises, then you have to buy a reasonable main full support and gain experience with your product."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"It is not cheap. It has its cost. It is one of the high-cost solutions."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) solutions are best for your needs.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP, oracle database, and this Civil connector is there. Of course, we have thi...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
IBM WebSphere ESB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. IBM Integration Bus and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.