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IBM DataPower Gateway vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (3rd), API Management (8th)
TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.2%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is 4.2%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2024
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.
Mustofa Yonus - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 30, 2023
A robust product that needs to improve the functionality it offers related to API lifecycle management
I use the solution in my company not as an engineer but as someone who currently operates at a managerial level. The product adds to and serves as a corporate-level product that offers standard integration and helps transport data during one-to-one integration and multi-layer integration while…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"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."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust."
"The technology is really easy to learn."
"The GUI and IDE features of this solution are easy to work with and to develop. We find application management easy using this solution. It is a stable product"
"The product’s most valuable feature is stability."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring, ease of use, and easy to understand development GUI."
"TIBCO has the platform in terms of speed and ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a service-oriented architecture, SOA-based."
 

Cons

"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."
"The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."
"It is a costly product."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"Our version does not have cloud capabilities."
"Issues with the support, the fees, and the termination of the professional services are reasons we are looking for other solutions."
"In the next release, there should be improvements made to the API manager."
"If TIBCO could be able to sort the size of their base image in the Container edition, it would be really marvelous. Right now it's around 299 MB. We'd really want it to reduce to a few MBs."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"In the configuration, where we need to customize, it takes more time that we expect it to, ideally."
"The intermediate version that we are using has stability issues. These stability issues should be resolved, but it seems like TIBCO is not focusing on resolving these issues. The resolution timelines are quite high even for high-priority incidents. Its price should be lower. Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
"The solution is very expensive when you use multiple components, it would b better if this could be reduced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product is expensive."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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 cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The biggest issue disadvantage of TIBCO is that it is expensive."
"The price is on the higher side. For the same price, if I go to the previous version, I would have got a lot more capacity with similar kinds of features."
"Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
"When it comes to cost, TIBCO is much more competitive than a product like Pega."
"The licensing cost is a challenge for quite a few customers."
"Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
6%
 

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 TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust.
What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
I don't like the product's API management platform, as it doesn't offer users enough functionality to help with API lifecycle management, making it a product that is way behind its competitors. The...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
ActiveMatrix Service Bus
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Colonial Life, CTBC Bank, New World Mobility, QUALCOMM, Swisscom Mobile, T-Mobile USA, Tata Teleservices, Telecom Italia
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.