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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Red Hat Fuse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.9
IBM DataPower Gateway consolidates functions, enhancing security and cost-efficiency, with APIs helping generate income despite perceived high costs.
Sentiment score
6.9
Red Hat Fuse offers time savings and financial benefits over time, despite high initial costs and integration challenges.
We count the number of hits and can say we earn and actually get the benefit from it.
Deputy director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
IBM DataPower Gateway's support is efficient and knowledgeable, but fees and delays vary; users suggest faster response times.
Sentiment score
7.5
Red Hat Fuse support is valued for helpfulness but needs improvement in response time and documentation, with variable user satisfaction.
In terms of OEM support, it is poor.
Middleware Administrator at Pronteff IT Solutions
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as a little bit weak, so I give it a seven out of ten.
Deputy director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the support for Red Hat Fuse as ten.
Technology Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
IBM DataPower Gateway is highly scalable for enterprises but may be costly for smaller firms using on-premises setups.
Sentiment score
7.1
Red Hat Fuse offers exceptional scalability for managing integrations and users, ideal for cloud and on-prem environments, despite minor scaling effort.
Once you install the product, we can't scale the resources on the IBM DataPower Gateway.
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
There are other factors to it, such as developer experience, so that developers can scale it.
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
IBM DataPower Gateway is highly stable and reliable, ideal for banks handling heavy transaction volumes in diverse environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Red Hat Fuse is praised for stability, reliability, and performance, especially on Linux; challenges noted with Windows require adjustments.
IBM DataPower Gateway does not handle all the traffic on a single node.
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
I would rate the stability of Red Hat Fuse at ten out of ten.
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
 

Room For Improvement

IBM DataPower Gateway users seek cost reduction, enhanced usability, expanded integration, and improved support and automation features.
Red Hat Fuse requires UI, documentation, and pricing improvements, better resource efficiency, and enhanced community support for easier use.
If we require additional features, we can't configure them on the IBM DataPower Gateway.
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can write the code in a few minutes or seconds.
Middleware Administrator at Pronteff IT Solutions
My experience with the pricing of this product is that pricing is too high and should be reduced.
Deputy director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
There is the possibility to create services directly in Java and call them at a high level from Apache Camel and expose them with Red Hat Fuse.
Technology Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
For us to use Red Hat Fuse with AI models, we need MCP so that we can be very confident that it can deliver us a really solid outcome when developers are using it, whether it is any of the integration patterns or messaging bus patterns.
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
 

Setup Cost

IBM DataPower Gateway can be costly, with pricing dependent on licensing, features, and specific customer requirements.
Red Hat Fuse is valued for its open-source model, balancing cost-effectiveness with optional paid support, despite variable pricing perceptions.
I think it costs around 5 Crore in Indian Rupees.
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
We are in the third renewal since we migrated to Red Hat Fuse. Cost always goes up, it does not go down.
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
I think the pricing for Red Hat Fuse is okay; it's not expensive, and the support is good.
Technology Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

IBM DataPower Gateway provides fast performance, strong security, seamless integration, scalability, and efficient management for comprehensive threat handling.
Red Hat Fuse offers integration with Camel, easy setup, scalability, cloud compatibility, and efficient deployment across infrastructures.
No other Gateway offers this as part of the integration offering.
Middleware Administrator at Pronteff IT Solutions
As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language.
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
IBM DataPower Gateway has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to implement rate limits on the different API usage, which is the benefit.
Deputy director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
When we flipped from the previous enterprise integration application to Red Hat Fuse, the TCO benefit was about 40 percent.
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
Regarding stability, Red Hat Fuse works well without lagging, crashing, or downtime.
Technology Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (7th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (11th)
Red Hat Fuse
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.9%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Fuse is 6.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway5.9%
Red Hat Fuse6.7%
Other87.4%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at CSB Bank Ltd
Security features excel but development limitations emerge
We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.
Nilay Rathod - PeerSpot reviewer
Chapter Area Lead/GM Group Architecture & IT at Spark New Zealand
Microservices have transformed our integrations and now highlight room to improve AI-driven tooling
There are areas in Red Hat Fuse that have room for improvement. We were recently having a discussion with Red Hat team building agentic AI, which we call AI SDLC. Something that the team is actively working on, but I have not really seen any production-level version of it is MCP. For us to use Red Hat Fuse with AI models, we need MCP so that we can be very confident that it can deliver us a really solid outcome when developers are using it, whether it is any of the integration patterns or messaging bus patterns. I have not seen that yet. Even though Red Hat has an alternative to that, such as a plugin, it is not as advanced as some of the MCPs that we see around.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise13
 

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?
This product is definitely expensive because if any issue occurs in the live environment or production environment, and our organization faces some issue with the IBM DataPower Gateway, then the IB...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The developer portal should be an integrated part of IBM DataPower Gateway to improve it. I think it is fine as is, and maybe no other additional features should be included in the next release. My...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Fuse?
I think the pricing for Red Hat Fuse is okay; it's not expensive, and the support is good.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Fuse?
The downsides of Red Hat Fuse that I encountered were related to the Java virtual machine I worked with, which was Oracle, as the client did not create good services. In the integration, they had m...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Fuse?
My use cases for Red Hat Fuse include using Drools to create a bunch of rules for the Finance Ministry in Chile many years ago. I worked with another enterprise named Aguas Andinas, which is a very...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
Fuse ESB, FuseSource
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Avianca, American Product Distributors (APD), Kings College Hospital, AMD, CenturyLink, AECOM, E*TRADE
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Red Hat Fuse and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.