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

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
Microsoft Azure API Management
Ranking in API Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 19.1%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

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.
Rajiv Bala Balasubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages and monetizes API
It is a scalable solution. You can add more computing power to your APM gateway. It also gives you the ability to have VNet integrations with your on-prem. It is one of the leading products in the API management space. It is not just software for users but software to handle requests. For example, for a B2C e-commerce store, all requests that users make from within the store pass through this API gateway. So it is defined by the number of requests to the API gateway, not by the number of actual users who use it. If you look at the number of requests, it would be a lot from all the different systems we have within Pampers.

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 straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"If you have an API application in your organization that you want to make safe and secure, in addition to your existing WAF or load balancer, this product comes with all those capabilities:"
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"I like the stability and the ease of use."
"The mediation and translation from SOAP to REST technology makes it possible to open up legacy systems that couldn't be opened before."
"We use this solution for API rate limiting and for its security features against DDoS."
"The integration and API Connect are valuable when we need to connect with web services and REST APIs."
"The price is pretty reasonable for us."
"The product gives API gateway-related features, like throttling, which are easy to use and low-code/no-code."
"The Application Gateway we have found to be the most useful in Microsoft Azure API Management. We have integrated the Microsoft Azure API Management with Application Gateway. Application Gateway is a type of load balancer that we are using for the high availability of our API calls."
"It's really easy to use for simple passthrough APIs."
 

Cons

"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"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."
"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"The hybrid part could be improved because API Management is entirely cloud-based, but some of our resources are on-prem, so formatting is an issue. Our goal is dual implementation."
"Microsoft Azure API Management could be improved by enhancing the visual editor of the development portal."
"From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance."
"The cloud deployment performance could be better."
"Expansion to global regions is a point for improvement, as licensing is costly."
"Latency is an area that needs improvement, especially for multi-tenant applications."
"The licensing tiers can be misleading."
"It should be easier to integrate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too 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 licensing cost is very expensive."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The product is expensive."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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 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."
"I rate the solution's pricing between three and four, as it could be more competitive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others."
"The solution is highly expensive. Our customers worry about the costs. The price should be a lot less."
"Microsoft is competitively priced."
"Because of our partner relationship, our pricing is pretty decent. But in general, if I compare pricing, I think the initial offer that we got from Microsoft until the relationship kicked in was more expensive than AWS. There were some unexpected expenses because we had to pause. This was due to our inexperience and because we were doing this significant public cloud migration for the first time. We were using SAP on a public cloud for the first time."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"It's pay as you go. The subscription packages have room for different scales. It's calculated by the number of apps or computers you use. You do not have to use the enterprise subscription. These subscriptions have different pricing, so you can find one to meet your needs for scalability."
"Azure API Management is the most expensive solution on the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which API Management solutions are best for your needs.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
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...
How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.