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IBM DataPower Gateway vs webMethods.io 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 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
4th
Ranking in API Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
webMethods.io
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
3rd
Ranking in API Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), Cloud Data Integration (7th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 10.7%, up from 9.5% 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
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.
Michele Illiano - PeerSpot reviewer
Can function as an ESB along with the core product, with decent integration of message protocols
I have noticed that webMethods ActiveTransfer has had problems when handling large files. For example, when we receive (and perform operations on) files that are larger than about 16 MB, the software starts losing performance. This is why, for most customers who have to deal with big files, I suggest that they use a product other than ActiveTransfer. I would like to note that this problem mainly concerns large files that undergo extra operations, such assigning, unassigning, or file translation. When these operations take place on large files, ActiveTransfer will use up a lot of resources. Within the product itself, I also believe that there is room for improvement in terms of optimization when it comes to general performance. I suspect that the issues underlying poor optimization are because it is all developed in Java. That is, all the objects and functions that are used need to be better organized, especially when it comes to big files but also overall. webMethods ActiveTransfer was born as an ESB to handle messages, and these messages were typically very short, i.e. small in size. A message is data that you have to send to an application, where it must be received in real-time and possibly processed or acknowledged elsewhere in the system as well. So, because it was initially designed for small messages, it struggles with performance when presented with very large files. All this to say, I suggest that they have an engineer reevaluate the architecture of the product in order to consider cases where large files are sent, and not only small ones. As for new features, compared to other products in the market, I think Software AG should be more up to date when it comes to extra protocol support, especially those protocols that other solutions have included in their products by default. Whenever we need to add an unsupported protocol, we have to go through the effort of custom development in order to work with it. Also, all the banks are obligated to migrate to the new standards, and big companies are all handling translations and operating their libraries with the new protocol formats. But webMethods ActiveTransfer doesn't seem to be keeping up with this evolution. Thus, they should aim to be more compliant in future, along the lines of their competitors such as IBM and Primeur.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"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."
"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."
"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:"
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"It is a bundled product stack for A2A and B2B usage. It is one of the best products which I have used during my integration career."
"The orchestration aspects of APIs, the integration capabilities, and the logging functionalities were the most critical features of our workflow."
"One [of the most valuable features] is the webMethods Designer. That helps our developers develop on their own. It's very intuitive for design. It helps our developers to speed the development of services for the integrations."
"It integrates well with various servers."
"I feel comfortable using this product with its ease of building interfaces for developers. This is a better integration tool for integrating with various applications like Oracle, Salesforce, mainframes, etc. It works fine in the integration of legacy software as well."
"I like the solution's policies, transformation, mediation, and routing features."
"It frankly fills the gap between IT and business by having approval and policy enforcement on each state and cycle of the asset from the moment it gets created until it is retired."
"WebMethods.io is a powerful tool, but it requires skilled people who can fully utilize its potential."
 

Cons

"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"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."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"As webMethods Integration Server is expensive, that's its area for improvement."
"I would like the solution to provide bi-weekly updates."
"A while ago, they were hacked, and it took them a very long time to open their website again in order to download any service packs or any features. I don't know what they could do differently. I know that they were vulnerable, and there was some downtime, but because they were down, we were unable to download any potential service packs."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The logging capability has room for improvement. That way, we could keep a history of all the transactions. It would be helpful to be able to get to that without having to build a standalone solution to do so."
"The product must add more compatible connectors."
"Perhaps in the area of Microservices, where I think Trading Networks could benefit from some improvements."
"wM SAP Adapter User Guide - Example, like Message Broker setup was unclear, leading to issues during Testing and we had refer the internet forums to understand that there is a Message Broker Cleanup utility and that needs to be setup as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little 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."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"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."
"Some of the licensing is "component-ized," which is confusing to new users/customers."
"The product is expensive."
"Always plan five years ahead and don’t jeopardize the quality of your project by dropping items from the bill of materials."
"Based on our team discussions and feedback, it is pretty costly because they charge us for each transmission."
"Initialy good pricing and good, if it comes to Enterprise license agreements."
"I do think webMethods is coming under increasing pressure when it comes to their price-to-feature value proposition. It's probably the single biggest strategic risk they have. They're very expensive in their industry. They've been raising the price recently, especially when compared with their competitors."
"The price of webMethods Integration Server isn't that high from an enterprise context, but open-source ESB solutions will always be the cheapest."
"This is not a cheap solution but, compared to other products such as those offered by IBM, the pricing is similar."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
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...
What do you like most about Built.io Flow?
The tool helps us to streamline data integration. Its BPM is very strong and powerful. The solution helps us manage digital transformation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them.
What needs improvement with Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
Built.io Flow, webMethods Integration Server, webMethods Trading Networks, webMethods ActiveTransfer, webMethods.io API
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.