Mule ESB vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

The compared Mule ESB and MuleSoft Anypoint Platform solutions aren't in the same category. Mule ESB is ranked #2 in E , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 15.0% mindshare in the category. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is ranked #1 in BBM , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 9.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Mule ESB users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform users who would recommend it.

Mule ESB

Read 54 Mule ESB reviews

3,601 Views
2,665 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Read 60 MuleSoft Anypoint Platform reviews

10,232 Views
1,228 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Mule ESB and MuleSoft Anypoint Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

To learn more, read our detailed Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

December 2025

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Helped 879,899 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

5.4

Calculating Mule ESB ROI is challenging, but users report positive returns from licensing, reusability, and microservices efforts.

Sentiment score

5.5

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform provides ROI through cost efficiency, reduced maintenance expenses, and enabling reuse in enterprises and smaller businesses.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Mule ESB's support is generally positive but varies by subscription level; users note inconsistencies and prefer external help sometimes.

Sentiment score

6.7

MuleSoft Anypoint has highly-rated support with fast response times, though documentation and response times need improvement.

We have a good relationship with our vendor, and they are ready to help us with any technical issues.

Richmond Cosay

Solutions Architect at Metrobank

The technical support of Mule ESB can be rated from nine to ten.

reviewer2704872

Senior Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The technical support from Salesforce is moderate.

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

I would probably rate the support for MuleSoft Anypoint Platform a nine on a scale from one to ten.

Greg O

Senior Validation Engineer at Weir Group PLC

The support team is responsive and helpful.

PietroDell'Erba

Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The Salesforce team offers different levels of support.

Satish Vardhani

Senior Consultant at Radiotechnologies

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.5

Mule ESB offers adaptable scalability and performance, ideal for diverse businesses with cloud deployments and large data volumes.

Sentiment score

7.3

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers scalable, flexible solutions for enterprises, though automated scalability and data demands can be limiting.

Mule ESB is a scalable solution.

reviewer2704872

Senior Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The adaptability of Mule ESB in supporting multiple messaging patterns is pretty decent and pretty good.

AshwaniKumar

Principal Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

When it comes to scalability and the ability to expand, I would rate Mule ESB as an eight or nine.

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is quite scalable, and it meets our use cases with no issues preventing implementation.

PietroDell'Erba

Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

MuleSoft provides the ability to scale, yet it is costly to do so.

reviewer2591856

Integration Lead at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Mule ESB is stable with minor glitches; improvements and proper management enhance reliability, scoring 8-9 out of 10.

Sentiment score

7.7

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is stable, though users report occasional connector issues and variability in scalability and performance.

Mule ESB is a stable product, and I have no doubts about its reliability.

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Room For Improvement

Mule ESB requires user-friendly documentation, enhanced stability, better performance, scalability, exception handling, and improved analytics for broader adaptability.

MuleSoft users seek faster updates, improved support, better pricing, enhanced UI, and expanded Anypoint MQ and integration capabilities.

Points for improvement in Mule ESB definitely include enhancing the analytics capabilities because currently, they rely on external logging tools such as Splunk or ELK, which is lagging behind compared to other tools such as Workato that offer more analytical features.

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

More information is needed from MuleSoft.

reviewer2704872

Senior Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Pricing is one factor that could be improved about Mule ESB; other than that, I'm pretty fine with it.

AshwaniKumar

Principal Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

MuleSoft is considered expensive, so pricing is a major concern.

reviewer2591856

Integration Lead at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Currently, it uses other standards, but adopting OpenAPI, the standard in the market, would be beneficial.

PietroDell'Erba

Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

When dealing with multiple transactions or trading, the system can lose control, and tracking becomes hectic.

Satish Vardhani

Senior Consultant at Radiotechnologies

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Setup Cost

Mule ESB's cost and flexible licensing appeal to enterprises, yet high fees lead smaller businesses to explore alternatives.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is costly, best for larger organizations, offering workload reduction but requires careful cost planning.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

MuleSoft is considered one of the more expensive products in the market.

reviewer2591856

Integration Lead at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

I do not know the specific costs, but given that it is part of MuleSoft, I suspect it is not cheap.

PietroDell'Erba

Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The platform reduces manual workload in maintaining infrastructure, but it does come with some cost considerations.

Satish Vardhani

Senior Consultant at Radiotechnologies

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Valuable Features

Mule ESB provides flexible, robust integrations with extensive connectors, data transformation, and API management, supported by cloud options and community.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform excels in API management, seamless integration, user-friendly design, scalability, and connectivity for hybrid environments.

They have their own language called DataWeave, which helps transform data and is efficient enough to handle any kind of transformation.

reviewer2704872

Senior Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

It is also reusable, meaning the same service can be used in multiple places simply by adding it, and this comes with the API-led architecture that makes integrations more secure and reliable.

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The best features of Mule ESB are that it's very robust and solid; I find that even our legacy systems go well with ESB.

Richmond Cosay

Solutions Architect at Metrobank

For more quotes and insights, download the Mule ESB report

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform helps to standardize data integration approaches, making it easier to implement integration projects.

PietroDell'Erba

Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable feature is the full lifecycle management, including Anypoint Designer and Exchange, as well as Discofolio API.

reviewer2591856

Integration Lead at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

The platform is integrated with Salesforce, making it preferable when using Salesforce products.

Satish Vardhani

Senior Consultant at Radiotechnologies

For more quotes and insights, download the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform report

Categories and Ranking

Mule ESB

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Message Queue (MQ) Software (4th), Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (4th), Cloud Data Integration (4th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. Mule ESB is designed for Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and holds a mindshare of 15.0%, down 21.6% compared to last year.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Business-to-Business Middleware, holds 9.8% mindshare, down 12.7% since last year.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Mule ESB	15.0%
IBM Integration Bus	16.6%
webMethods.io	9.7%
Other	58.7%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Business-to-Business Middleware Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	9.8%
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services	12.9%
SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite	9.7%
Other	67.6%

Business-to-Business Middleware

Featured Reviews

Srinivas-Kanduri

Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Integration architecture has enabled reliable multi-channel messaging and secure API management but now needs better analytics and simpler development

In my opinion, the real-time analytics part of Mule ESB is not up to the mark for the decision-making process. While there are some analytics features, they lack the standards needed for enterprise use. Compared to other analytics tools such as Power BI, MuleSoft falls short.Points for improvement in Mule ESB definitely include enhancing the analytics capabilities because currently, they rely on external logging tools such as Splunk or ELK, which is lagging behind compared to other tools such as Workato that offer more analytical features. Additionally, issues arise with AI-based use cases due to dependencies on Salesforce tools such as agent force, making development more complicated when it should be more independent. Developing AI-based agents without being tied to Salesforce applications could also enhance functionality.

Read full review

Greg O

Senior Validation Engineer at Weir Group PLC

Integration workflows have become transparent and secure while error tracking is streamlined

The best features in MuleSoft Anypoint Platform for me are transparency between logging in or deploying and using different environments. Managing different environments for the transparency of error logins or how to trace traceability is very important. It's very easy to use and sort, so you can see where everything has gone right and everything has gone wrong. I'm aware of the drag-and-drop interface in MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, and it's very, very quick. It's very time-saving and very efficient. The security features on MuleSoft Anypoint Platform help maintain data integrity in my organization; I would say it's second to none. It's one of the best out there that I have worked with because of the encryption and decryption, and there are a lot of security aspects. I would assess the platform's data mapping and transformation capabilities as amazing. Automation has been straightforward; the transformation and mapping have been easy to use, easy to source, and from the source to the target. I would say it has been very good.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	30

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 ...

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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...

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What do you like most about Mule ESB?

The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.

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What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?

I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...

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How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...

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What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?

This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...

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Comparisons

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 11% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB

Compared 6% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Redwood RunMyJobs vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 16% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Boomi iPaaS vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 3% of the time

IBM MQ vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 3% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More MuleSoft Anypoint Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

December 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Buyer's Guide

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

December 2025

Download MuleSoft Anypoint Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ

Overview

For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.

Salesforce

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform provides API management and integration capabilities with scalability, ensuring seamless connectivity across systems.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers API management and integration capabilities within a user-friendly interface. With a range of connectors and the ability to handle integration patterns, it enables data integration across environments with support for API-led connectivity. High scalability, observability, batch processing, and tooling are key features, enhancing performance while simplifying deployment.

What are the standout features of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform?

API Management: Comprehensive tools for managing APIs effectively.
Integration Capabilities: Facilitates diverse integration patterns.
Connectors: Extensive library for connecting various systems.
Observability: Enhances monitoring and performance tracking.
Batch Processing: Manages large volumes of data efficiently.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Scalability: Adaptable to growing data demands across platforms.
Performance: Simplifies complex deployments and improves processing.
Flexibility: Supports multiple environments, from cloud to on-premises.
User-Friendly: Streamlines integration processes with robust tools.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is employed by organizations for API management and seamless integration across systems in industries like retail and e-commerce. It connects enterprise applications in environments such as SAP and Salesforce. Users leverage it for data transformation and synchronization, achieving efficient real-time processing and a middleware layer across systems.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot

VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

December 2025

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