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IBM Integration Bus vs webMethods.io comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
webMethods.io
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (4th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), API Management (10th), Cloud Data Integration (9th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.6%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 10.5%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"It allows us to avoid the need for consumers to understand multiple API protocols and security arrangements, and in some circumstances can reduce the impact of systems being unavailable."
"We use IBM Integration Bus for document conversions."
"Web interface, REST API for viewing services, admin, stats, and deployment are premium features, which makes IIB stand among its competition."
"The solution has enhanced data processing capabilities by allowing efficient data integration and transformation."
"Content is easily infiltrated in the eclipse infrastructure."
"The Aspera feature for high-speed transfer is highly effective."
"It's easy to develop things, and it's easy to handle."
"The product is usually very easy to deploy."
"The connectivity that the tool provides, along with the functionalities needed for our company's business, are some of the beneficial aspects of the product."
"We have found the pricing of the solution to be fair."
"The orchestration aspects of APIs, the integration capabilities, and the logging functionalities were the most critical features of our workflow."
"The tool supports gRPC."
"It's obvious that the heart of the product lies here. It's comprised of all aspects of ESB (Enterprise Gateway, Adapter, TN, Java) and BPM (task, rules engine)."
"The product is very stable."
"One valuable feature is that it is event-driven, so when new data is available on the source it can be quickly processed and displayed. Integration is definitely another useful feature, and B2B is one area where webMethods has its own unique thing going, whereby we can do monitoring of transactions, monitoring of client onboarding, and so on."
"The Software AG Designer has been great. It's very intuitive."
 

Cons

"Today, the IBM business rule engine, the DataPower is outside the Enterprise Service Bus. It's sold as a different feature or application. If it could be integrated, then it's able to handle a lot more of what we are doing now rather than just have a stateless ESB that you can't do much on, and a set of normal business rules."
"The tracing and debugging features are not up to date with more modern technology available."
"Its documentation is currently lacking. We have different environments where we use our configuration services, but we are not able to find documentation about how to deploy the local code to the server and how to set it up on a server level. I would like more documents from IBM that explain which variables should be in your machine while building a project, and when you deploy the code into the server, what should be their values. There are some variable values. I could not find such documentation. While working on a project, I developed the code on a local machine, and while deploying the code to our test environment, I made a couple of mistakes. We had to change some values at the server level, but we couldn't find any documentation regarding this, which made the task difficult."
"I don't mind the pricing."
"The solution needs to improve it's security and its proactive notification of security issues."
"I would like to see more metered rest and API support. IBM is already working on it on Version 11, but it still needs improvement."
"Sometimes migration takes too long."
"Recently, there was a lot of instability when selecting the solution they needed for testing."
"Scalability and connectors to different cloud applications is lacking."
"The UI for the admin console is very old. It hasn't been updated for years and is pretty much the same one that we started with. This is something that could be refreshed and made more modern."
"The solution should include REST API calls."
"With respect to the API gateway, the runtime component, the stability after a new release is something that can be improved."
"We got the product via a reseller, and the support from the reseller has been less than desirable."
"Forced migration from MessageBroker to Universal Messaging requires large scale reimplementation for JMS."
"The solution has big instances when deployed under microservices or in a containerized platform. They need to improve that so that it is competitive with other integration solutions, like Redis and Kafka. Deployments under microservices with those solutions are much more lightweight, in the size of the runtime itself, compared with Software AG."
"Support is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
"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."
"As customers, we always try to buy things as cheaply as possible. But the price for the IBM Integration Bus is fine. When we compare it to competitors, it's pretty much the same. However, there are a lot of open-source integration platforms coming to the market as well. So overall, the price is fine as far as licensed products are concerned."
"IBM Integration Bus itself is prices fair but App-Connect is a bit expensive which we use in conjunction with it."
"IBM is expensive."
"The licensing model of IBM Integration Bus is good. It's a yearly subscription. However, the price is depending on the model that you choose. If it's a Cloud version, then you can pay per month or you can pay it annually upfront. There are three-year options available, but it depends on what deployment you have."
"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"Initialy good pricing and good, if it comes to Enterprise license agreements."
"I signed a three-year deal with them. It is a yearly locked-in price for the next three years."
"Its cost depends on the use cases."
"webMethods Trading Networks is a bit costly compared to others solutions."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"There are no hidden costs in addition to the standard licensing fees for webMethods. For corporate organizations, it's a very cheap or fairly priced product, but for growing or small businesses, it's quite expensive. These businesses would probably need to consider an enterprise services bus at some point. Thus, from a pricing point, it closes out non-cooperate businesses."
"The price is a little bit high, especially regarding their support."
"It is worth the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

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 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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.