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IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (6th)
Mule ESB
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
47
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 15.2%, up 12.3% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 25.2% mindshare, up 24.9% since last year.
Business-to-Business Middleware
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Joshua Rule - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 30, 2023
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
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

"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."
"The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"They have best-in-class, quality support."
"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."
"This tool has exceptional API management and integration connectors in addition to multiple out of the box connectors."
"The solution offers multiple deployment options."
"The architecture based on events has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company."
"I'm not using ESB directly. It is the integration layer, so it's running under the hood. However, the conversion and transformation performance is excellent. Anypoint Enterprise Security is also solid."
"It was pretty fast to develop APIs on this platform, which is something I liked about it. So, the time to value was pretty good."
"The product offers a community edition that is free of cost."
"The connectors help to connect with a variety of applications."
"The most valuable feature for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."
 

Cons

"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."
"Onboarding on the solution is complex. It's hard to onboard partners and customer suppliers. It's one aspect that is not that straightforward."
"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."
"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."
"Limitation on external subscribers to listen to the messages on the bus."
"The current version will not be supported for much longer."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see support for BPM in the next release of this solution."
"It's not easy to troubleshoot and we still can't make it work."
 

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."
"The pricing must be improved."
"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."
"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."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"This product is cheaper than some offered by other vendors, although there is a problem because you have to pay for some third-party adapters."
"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Retailer
9%
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

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.
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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