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IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Mule ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
48
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 Integration Bus is 24.3%, up from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 25.2%, up from 24.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 29, 2024
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.
PurbayanSaha - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 9, 2024
Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs
We're using our Mule ESB mostly for integration projects for multinational companies that do business on a B2C or B2B basis. We also work with companies with multiple third-party vendors employed under their payroll. The Mule ESB helps integrate data from third-party systems or vendors with the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the API integration."
"The product is usually very easy to deploy."
"The message queue feature is very valuable."
"The interface is quite stable."
"The biggest advantage of this solution is that it is very easy to learn, and very easy to build applications."
"The most valuable features of the IBM Integration Bus are the flexibility to easily integrate with other solutions, such as SAP or any other vendors."
"From a performance point of view, it's very good and it doesn't need very much in terms of CPU resources."
"I recommend it for large enterprises but only for specific use cases. You need to have a relatively mature integration practice in your organization to leverage its capabilities fully."
"The most valuable feature of Mule ESB is data transformation, i.e. our interacting with different systems and orchestrating for our business needs."
"The most valuable feature is that it's programmer-friendly, so it's very easy to develop APIs."
"The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily."
"The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot."
"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."
"Mule ESB is a very easy-to-use and user-friendly solution."
"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."
"Easy connectivity and easy integration."
 

Cons

"The tracing and debugging features are not up to date with more modern technology available."
"IBM Integration Bus could improve by having a more lightweight installation. Additionally, automation could improve."
"IBM Integration Bus isn't particularly user-friendly and has a big learning curve."
"Recently, there was a lot of instability when selecting the solution they needed for testing."
"The next versions are moving toward container use. It would be a shame to make the product highly complex just to support one pattern of deployment. It is my hope that IBM continues to focus on practical functionality that is simple and cost-effective."
"IBM Integration Bus could be easier to manage, but this is true of all vendors. It doesn't always do what it says on the box."
"It provides all the features that are required for day-to-day work. So far, I haven't seen any major issues that impact our work. I have been told that IBM App Connect Enterprise, which is the next version of IIB, is really good. It is better than IIB, and it gives you more coverage in terms of application integration."
"The product could be improved by including more resources on SQL."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"It would be much more beneficial if the solution included AI and business process management."
"I would like to see support for BPM in the next release of this solution."
"It needs more samples. Also, the dependency on Maven should be removed."
"From an improvement perspective, there should be fewer coding challenges for users in Mule ESB."
"It would be beneficial if users could navigate the UI easily without extensive training or learning curves."
"In India, particularly in the banking sector, clients do not prefer cloud solutions due to regulatory and compliance requirements."
"From the product perspective, it was sometimes hard to manage the dependencies. When we had to add dependencies on a couple of different packages, it was sometimes confusing. It was hard to update them with Anypoint Studio, as well as with MuleSoft. There were challenges with that. So, that's one of the areas that could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I generally do not get involved in the licensing or pricing because I'm a hardcore technical guy, but I'm aware of the fact that IBM is highly expensive, so not everybody can afford it. All the products are licensed."
"IBM Integration Bus itself is prices fair but App-Connect is a bit expensive which we use in conjunction with it."
"The price of the IBM Integration Bus is expensive. If you compare the price to the cloud version you can purchase what you need but the on-premise version price is flat."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"It is a highly-priced solution."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"Our licensing is based on a five-year contract, and as far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
"I think the price is very high. If you use TIBCO BW, the license is for the CPU usage, then the IPS, and support. I also think the license for the product is a one-time expense."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."
"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."
"Mule ESB is a costly solution. We pay approximately $80,000 annually for the system. The cost of the number of instances, annual subscription, and cloud hosting services are expensive."
"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
"Regarding licensing and pricing, I find it somewhat flexible. They are more flexible with larger customers compared to small and medium ones, as their licensing model depends on ports and other factors. Large customers benefit from more flexibility in implementation and renewal compared to smaller ones."
"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP, oracle database, and this Civil connector is there. Of course, we have thi...
What do you like most about Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
What needs improvement with Mule ESB?
There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, app...
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,791 professionals have used our research since 2012.