Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM DataPower Gateway vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024
 

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 (3rd)
WSO2 API Manager
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, 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 WSO2 API Manager is 4.8%, up from 4.1% 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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
A complete platform for building, integrating, and exposing your digital services as managed APIs in the cloud, on-premise, and hybrid architectures to drive your digital transformation strategy.
WSO2 API Manager could improve by adding external API security features, which is one area where there is room for enhancement. Internally, API security is strong, and all other necessary features are already available. It has a solid marketplace, supports both Docker and standalone setups, and offers great enterprise integration. The developer portal has greatly improved the user experience, making it simple and user-friendly wherever we’ve implemented it. Overall, it’s not as complicated as other API gateways.

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."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"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:"
"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 I like most is the stability."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"WSO2 is very stable."
"WSO2 API Manager's most valuable features are the simple interface that is easy to use and the APIs lifecycle."
"It's very scalable, which is one of the best features."
"The most interesting feature is its Mac-based function."
"Functionality-wise, I like WSO2 API Manager - Publisher API and WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus."
"The documentation is good."
"It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability."
"WSO2 API Manager has a user-friendly model."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"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."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"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."
"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."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"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 professional support and licensing aspects of WSO have been a challenge."
"From a product perspective, the first thing is that although the documentation provided by WSO2 is good, it could be much better. We're in the middle of a complex migration, moving away from VMs to Kubernetes with the latest version of WSO2 and good documentation is essential to us right now."
"They are developing another platform called Choreo that allows you to create API itself using the WSO2 programming language Ballerina. It would be great if they added a direct connection between Choreo and API Manager, that would be great. I think they are working on that, but I'm not sure."
"WSO2 API Manager could increase their security compliance."
"The initial setup can be difficult."
"WSO2 API Manager can be improved a lot relating to usability"
"The solution’s interface should be more user-friendly."
"Basically, mTLS is a certificate-based communication protocol that WSO2 API Manager doesn't support."
 

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 appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The product is 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 challenge is the increasing pricing, which has led some customers to consider alternatives, like using Spring Boot solutions instead. The rising costs, especially as cores and usage increase, have been a concern, prompting some to migrate to other products."
"WSO2 API Manager is an open-source solution."
"It is an open-source product."
"We use the open-source version — the free version."
"There is a subscription-based pricing structure and also the open-sourced version available."
"WSO2 API Manager is a low-cost solution. It is one of the most affordable solutions."
"It is costly, around ten thousand per year, per instance"
"The solution costs less than 20,000 euros a year. I'm not sure of the exact number."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which API Management solutions are best for your needs.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
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 WSO2 API Manager?
It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability.
What needs improvement with WSO2 API Manager?
One area for improvement is monitoring. Dashboards for application monitoring of the APIs would be beneficial, allowing us to check for faulty APIs.
What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?
We use WSO2 API Manager for our microservices and our APIs, both internally and externally.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
1. eBay 2. StubHub 3. Cisco 4. Verizon 5. T-Mobile 6. Vodafone 7. Orange 8. BT Group 9. Telstra 10. Deutsche Telekom 11. Swisscom 12. AT&T 13. Sprint 14. Telefonica 15. O2 16. British Airways 17. Lufthansa 18. Emirates 19. Qatar Airways 20. Etihad Airways 21. Air France 22. KLM 23. American Express 24. Visa 25. Mastercard 26. PayPal 27. Western Union 28. Citibank 29. HSBC 30. Barclays 31. Santander 32. Goldman Sachs
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. WSO2 API Manager and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.