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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
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (4th), 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 February 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 19.4%, 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

"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."
"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:"
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"I like the stability and the ease of use."
"Azure API is scalable."
"I like API Management's ability to do hybrid cloud stuff."
"The solution is reliable and very stable."
"API Management does not take long to deploy."
"The integration and API Connect are valuable when we need to connect with web services and REST APIs."
"The API management is great."
"I like that security features can be integrated with API Management. I also like that you can perform rate-limiting and throttling functions."
 

Cons

"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"Previously, our company's cloud services were shut down, and we used to take more time to update services, so such issues are areas where improvements are needed."
"I would like to see better scalability and better performance."
"The implementation has room for improvement and can be more user-friendly."
"The scalability of this solution could be improved. The volume which the API Management task service can handle needs to be improved. Cost wise, this solution could be optimized."
"API Management's price could be lower."
"They're trying to implement versioning and trying to be able to manage different versions of your API all at the same time, but they're not doing that just quite right yet."
"The cloud deployment performance could be better."
"Azure API Management could be improved with better integration with all of Microsoft's tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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."
"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 appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"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."
"Since everyone is isocentric here, it is reasonable for me."
"It costs around 30,000 Kronas a month, which translates to about $3,000 dollars monthly."
"It's an expensive solution"
"Compared to other solutions the cost is a seven out of ten."
"It's being paid monthly."
"I would describe the tool's price as being in the mid-range category."
"Azure is a pay-as-you-go model. You build out your virtual environment and pay a monthly price depending on CPU cores, storage, etc."
"Based on the resources that we are leveraging, the price we are paying to use this solution is slightly higher than other competitors. In a few cases, it has its own advantage in some resources."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
10%
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: January 2025.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.