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IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (3rd), API Management (8th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 10.5%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2024
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.
Saleem Shar - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 3, 2023
Compatible, stable, and scalable
We deploy the solution both on-premise and Azure, AWS, and IBM cloud. We use a solution for our e-commerce application. We have an application deployed on AWS Cloud, for a client, which has a large B2B customer base in Australia. Therefore, we use WebSphere Application Server for the e-commerce…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The solution is robust."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the best in terms of scalability and performance, as well as the support for managing distributed transactions."
"The only reason why we're currently using WebSphere is that the integration of the authentication with Azure is very quick. WebSphere has something that can immediately connect with Azure Active Directory."
"High availability, alert management, and deployments are the most valuable features for us. We have the ND version so we can do deployments."
"It does integrate well with the Tivoli Federated Identity Management system."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Portal Virtualization."
"Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition."
"The thing about WebSphere, as opposed to other ones that I am aware of such as JBoss and Liberty, is that WebSphere has the most comprehensive scaffolding available to it."
"Ease of administration: It has an Integrated Solutions Console, what we call the administrative console, with very detailed configurations and Help pages for each configurable item."
 

Cons

"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The current trend is to move to Liberty because of the portability of its cloud and its Kubernetes, which containerize the application."
"The solution consumes hardware."
"WebSphere Application Server doesn't have an automated deployment option, forcing us to use third-party tools like Jenkins UCD and Palo Automated Deployment."
"The security could be better."
"What could be improved in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its interconnection with other products, for example, Kafka. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is a better graphical user interface."
"I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The installation has room for improvement."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server hasn't changed much. It's still a heavyweight for any company compared to what you get. Unless your code base is deeply linked with it, I don't think it's a great idea to go with this solution. The current trend is toward modularity and containerization, and given the product's requirements, containerization will be difficult. There is a memory requirement as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"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 tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The pricing is a little expensive."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"The licensing policy is based on the PVU base."
"We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue."
"It's expensive."
"The price of this product is higher than that of competitors."
"There is an Eclipse Plugin provided by IBM, so no need to buy IBM Rational Application Developer or Rational Software Architect tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing 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 price could be more flexible for different clients.
What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
WebSphere Application Server
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. IBM WebSphere Application Server and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.