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Mule ESB vs WSO2 Enterprise Integrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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

Mule ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WSO2 Enterprise Integrator
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of Mule ESB is 19.3%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.4%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Decreases the development timeframe and costs
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for easy integration with third-party systems. Often, customers decide to develop using open-source tools like Spring Boot if there aren't many connectors required to avoid increasing costs. They'll develop this way and then deploy using APIM, the bare minimum needed. It is mainly required for very complicated setups with many connectors. In the implementations I've seen, people often used open-source tools because there weren't many third-party systems involved—just their organization's own systems. From WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, I expect them to bring up more and more connectors in the future. That's the main expectation. Having more connectors in various areas will help us when discussing new requirements. I don't have any specific use case right now, so I can't name a particular connector. But, as new technologies emerge, the relevant connectors should be there for those. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator mainly helps with the integration part, which can be simplified only if you have relevant connectors for whatever you're doing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot."
"For complex cases, we employ the SSLi engine, whereas for simpler ones like healthcare or response data, such as EDI 270 or 271. We prefer to use an external XRT engine instead of handling it within the ESB for ease of management."
"The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily."
"The solution improved my company by modernizing the way we offer services and improving the user experience."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Mule ESB is data transformation, i.e. our interacting with different systems and orchestrating for our business needs."
"The API management capabilities are exemplary. You can apply security policies to most applications, monitor logs, and get analytical data on request reception, response generation time, associated APIs, endpoints, and inbound and outbound messages."
"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."
"The solution's technical support is very knowledgeable."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"The customer service executives are very responsive."
"It's a consolidated product. It works and it does its job pretty well."
"The productivity is the most valuable feature. It is very easy to write remediations."
"The installation process is easy."
"It's a very complete product. It allows us to network security and add more layers of security to the system."
"WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide."
 

Cons

"From an improvement perspective, there should be fewer coding challenges for users in Mule ESB."
"Improvements could be made in performance."
"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."
"Community editions need more attention."
"Lacking some connectors that could be included."
"It should have some amount of logging."
"In an upcoming release, I would like to see more additional concept for exception handling, batch processing, and increased integration with other application."
"MuleSoft is not so strong in method-based integration, so they're not so functional in that regard."
"I would like to see them bring back a feature, from earlier versions, that was very useful in debugging and finding issues."
"In my opinion, the administration model and interface, of Carbon, are lacking in terms of its features and user experience."
"The administration side is complex and could use significant improvements to enhance the solution's functionality."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"WSO2 libraries are not mature enough. For example, if you want to integrate with Kafka using its Kafka library, it often has many bugs."
"They should introduce better pricing for small companies."
"If I have to buy software, then it becomes expensive for me."
"There are a lot of security settings that when you apply you have to re-apply again every time you modify a setting. It is something that really needs to be enhanced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"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."
"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."
"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 solution is expensive."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"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."
"It is a low-cost solution."
"The solution costs about 20,000 or 30,000 euros per year, per instance."
"The pricing of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator for enterprise subscriptions can be considered expensive, especially from the perspective of someone who prefers open-source software."
"The open-source, unsupported version is available free of charge."
"The cost is better than IBM Cloud Pak."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
6%
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 Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
What do you like most about WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The product has reasonable and competitive pricing for enterprise customers. It is expensive for small businesses especially. They are using the open-source solution, and they find it expensive sin...
What needs improvement with WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for e...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
West
Find out what your peers are saying about Mule ESB vs. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.