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IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB 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 Sterling B2B Integratio...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (5th)
Mule ESB
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is designed for Business-to-Business Middleware and holds a mindshare of 14.3%, up 10.7% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 21.4% mindshare, down 22.6% since last year.
Business-to-Business Middleware
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Joshua Rule - PeerSpot reviewer
Comes with real-time integration suite and best security
We use the product in an integrated environment where the client needs a variety of different file transfer protocols as well as an integrated file translation service IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services offers the best security.  The product's most valuable feature is the real-time…
PurbayanSaha - PeerSpot reviewer
Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs
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, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have multiple features for each kind of task and issue. The company has different channels to give information to the administration. Security and integration capabilities are also important. This product has helped to replace a lot of other solutions, saving time and cost."
"They have best-in-class, quality support."
"The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite."
"We are able to monitor all B2B messages, and we are able to see or track each message on it from an error perspective. That's a good side of it. It is working well, and we're able to do our current job."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."
"The connectors help to connect with a variety of applications."
"Mule Expression Language"
"The product offers a community edition that is free of cost."
"This tool has exceptional API management and integration connectors in addition to multiple out of the box connectors."
"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."
"Mule ESB has a user-friendly design, and everything is in one place. The API and architecture are popular right now. Also, MuleSoft has a large and supportive online community."
"I like that Mule ESB provides fast and good technical support."
 

Cons

"Onboarding on the solution is complex. It's hard to onboard partners and customer suppliers. It's one aspect that is not that straightforward."
"They can improve APIs because they are still lagging behind in API connectivity. With non-API connectivity, they're market leaders, but API connectivity, they're still in the immature space."
"It can be now classified as a legacy system because there are no more updates. From what I know, there will be no updates for the current version, which is an issue. Therefore, we are looking for a compatible new software that we can use. We're currently researching what is there in the market. We would consider something that would give us better speed on our current processor. There is also room for improvement in terms of its scalability and GUI. It is an old system, and its scalability can be improved. Its GUI can also be more appealing."
"The only weaknesses they have different governance for each task and different channels for communication which are hard to maintain. The relation of the company with other companies can be improved. We have a lot of customers who this platform for the interchange of information which can also be improved. The compliance information about banks can also be updated."
"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."
"We would like to have a built-in logging framework in which we can do auditing."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"One area that could be improved is the way that policies are propagated when APIs are moved from one environment to another. It's an issue, but when you develop and test the rest APIs in a lower environment and need to move them, there's a propagation process. This process moves certain aspects of the APIs, like the basic features. But when we move them, the policies don't always move with them. The policies should be able to move so we don't have to redo them manually. There are some APIs we use, but it's a bit tedious."
"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"The solution isn't as stable as we'd like it to be. There are some ongoing issues and therefore Mule has to provide frequent patches. Mule's core IP should be more stable overall."
"In order to meet the new trend of active metadata management, we need intelligent APIs that can retrieve new data designs and trigger actions over new findings without human intervention."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a little bit on the higher side because they give you the best support. Out of ten, I would rate pricing at seven or eight."
"The tool is expensive because of its rich features."
"They have a good pricing system, in relation to powerful features."
"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."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"The solution is expensive."
"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
"You will not get any support from Mule ESB's team for the tool's community edition...You can get support with the licensed version of Mule ESB."
"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"The pricing must be improved."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?
The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite.
What needs improvement with IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services needs to improve API management. It needs to incorporate a better and more stable use of AS3 software.
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 Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
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