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IBM DataPower Gateway vs MuleSoft API Manager 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
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 5.4%, down from 8.5% 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.
Dipanjan_Nandi - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable testing stubs and policy enforcement with room for better security and cost management
From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available. Features like monetization and advanced security, which are present in Apigee, are missing. I also want the API Manager to be used as a separate product apart from MuleSoft's other integration solutions. Additionally, the licensing cost is high, and many clients are looking to switch due to this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"The solution is robust."
"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."
"I like all of the features in this product and it does what it's supposed to do."
"We can use both on-premises and cloud setups."
"Both the cloud and on-premises options are available. Customers can leverage the MuleSoft Cloud platform to deploy the applications or set up their own online infrastructure to deploy applications."
"We use it heavily because Azure offers better pricing than its competitors."
"Anypoint is very capable in terms of scalability."
"The solution has a feature called Flex, which is a low-latency API layer for passthrough APIs where you want data mapping but with very low latency and high scalability."
"The auto-creation of the API documentation is useful."
"The integration process was straightforward."
"Leveraging MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform allows us to seamlessly integrate across different systems within enterprises, enabling customers to extend their products and services to the market with seamless channel integration."
 

Cons

"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"It is a costly product."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"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."
"We find that the enterprise level is lacking scalability."
"The cost model could be improved."
"The solution is expensive."
"I would like to see MuleSoft expand the range of APIs you can manage with it beyond HTTP, GIPC, and others."
"Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager can improve some of the gateway features. We could use some more customization in creating rules. A lot of the policies are related to the APIs rather than the client. If I want to apply a policy based on a client that is not available."
"Their studio performance is very slow, it requires a lot of memory, and should be improved."
"The dashboards in Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager could improve."
"The API gateway and API runtime are too heavy, which means that it is not suitable for microservices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"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."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little 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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"I think that it is pretty expensive."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as six and a half to seven."
"Our customers have a lot of concerns about the increased pricing. The customer feels MuleSoft is very costly, and they are also exploring other integration tools for a lesser price. Maybe we should retain the existing customers by offering some discounts. At least the existing customers can be retained this way. This is regarding the licensing part only because customers based out of North America and Europe have shown many concerns recently. They are a bit concerned about pricing."
"The pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"It is extremely high, and I would rate it one out of ten."
"It is really expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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.
How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of software, it is easy to install and upgrade. While there are different things that ...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
Anypoint API Manager
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.