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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle SOA Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Application Infrastructure
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (11th)
Oracle SOA Suite
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SOA Suite is 4.1%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

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.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

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 scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"What I like most is the stability."
"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 product is stable...The product is scalable."
"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 API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The product provides transparency in finances."
"The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature."
"It performs better in real-time transactions."
"The product allows you to visualize how a company is working currently by providing rich possibilities for analysis such as the audit trails and therefore shows where improvements might be valuable."
"The new product has come out with SOA Cloud Service and Integration Analytics as well, which gives more options for clients to pick their point of requirements."
"Valuable features include connectors and BAM."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"Conceptually, how it integrates a lot of essential enterprise process components. That's the most valuable."
 

Cons

"It is a costly product."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"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."
"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 programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"Various parts of SOA, BPEL, and so on, each have their own consoles which need to be accessed individually with different logins. It would be better from an admin perspective if all the consoles were accessible via a single login."
"If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit."
"One area that could be better is the human task feature. It could be improved to provide more functionality and customization options because it has limited options available."
"An area for improvement in Oracle SOA Suite is the cost. It could be lower."
"I would like to see divided containers more separately as a microservice."
"Its function options can be improved."
"Decrease the number of internal resources which the product uses."
"The deployment could be made easier by including add-ons like Hudson and Maven."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"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 licensing cost is very expensive."
"It is an expensive 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."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"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."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"The product is moderately priced."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"Oracle SOA Suite 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%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Educational Organization
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 Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
SOA Suite
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.