We use the solution to create integration with different systems.
Director - Projects at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
A scalable solution with good community support
Pros and Cons
- "I am impressed with the product's connectors and scalability."
- "The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I am impressed with the product's connectors and scalability.
What needs improvement?
The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for three years.
Buyer's Guide
Mule ESB
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Mule ESB. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. We have a few hundred users for the product.
How was the initial setup?
I would rate the solution's setup a six out of ten and took around three to four days to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten. It is a pricy solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is a good and stable product with great community support.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
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Senior Software Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
You can write business logic as a workflow.
What is most valuable?
- Writing your complex business logic as a simple workflow which can be understood by not so technical people
- Hot deployment of those workflows, which helps in automation and self-learning/healing.
- Provides a variety of connectors: SalesForce, Twitter, SAP, Facebook, and WebService consumer. Most of them come for free with the Community Edition.
- Async/concurrent execution of services within a flow
- Logging
How has it helped my organization?
We had to design a complex diagnostic and analysis tool that catered to different ERPs. For example, connecting to different types of data sources and listening from different types of services (over Web and FTP).
Business services for diagnostics should be modified by admin/functional people and applications should be updated on-the-fly without any down time.
The Mule runtime engine served the purpose and we developed a drag-and-drop workflow designer (web app) that is built on top of Mule to make it easy for admins to create and edit services.
For how long have I used the solution?
I’ve been using Mule ESB for 18 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had no issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did have scalability issues. It demanded more RAM at times, when there were a larger number of requests while listening over FTP. This is the case with any web container.
How are customer service and technical support?
I am a Community Edition user, so I can’t comment about the enterprise support by Mule. However, you will not get an immediate response for your queries in any of the technical forums.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not use any ESB earlier, but this is the best Community Edition ESB available in the market. However, we abused it as a workflow engine.
How was the initial setup?
To get an initial setup is straightforward.
- Write a simple HTTP-based listener workflow.
- Print whatever you send in a context path in a browser.
- Dump it in a standalone runtime.
- Start it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would advise using the Community Edition if you are developing an application as an additional service to a customer or a non-critical Tier-2 application. You can do this without support.
Apart from support and a few additional connectors, the enterprise edition is not so different from CE.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was not part of choosing this solution.
What other advice do I have?
Don’t abuse it. Be clear if you want a Mule application to solely solve your business problems, or if you want it as an add-on to solve a few problems that your main application can’t solve.
You may get into scalability issues if you are not clear about this basic difference.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Mule ESB
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Mule ESB. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Co Founder - Data Engineering Head at Sadeeem Knowledge
Great increased our development and improves our time to market
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has a good graphical interface."
- "Community editions need more attention."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for payment integration. We are customers of Mule ESC and I'm a co-founder and the data engineer head.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has helped us to develop more quickly and improve our time to market.
What is most valuable?
I like the graphical interface and the number of connectors. The solution is easy to maintain.
What needs improvement?
I'd like to see more attention given to the community editions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for 10 years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable and stable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup wasn't that complex, we did it ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We're using the open-source version.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution nine out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Integration Architect @ Information Management, Integration and Analytics - RXP Services Limited at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
It allows for mappings using a DSL
What is most valuable?
DataWeave: It allows for complex mappings using a simple DSL (Domain Specific Language).
How has it helped my organization?
Integration between systems can often take several days. However, with MuleSoft ESB, it can take as little as fifteen minutes.
What needs improvement?
The CloudHub offering requires some time to mature. However, it is a good overall solution.
Some further details:
1. The AnypointMQ offering is not very stable, as such can cause issues
when dealing with high volume burst messages.
2. The CloudHub offering is EC2 instance based and does not run in
containers.
3. The speed of the CloudHub user interface is poor.
4. Deployment takes several minutes (due to Ec2 architecture as opposed to
containerization).
5. There is currently no cross application object store.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used MuleSoft ESB for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
CloudHub stability has been an issue. However, this is being worked on.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product scales very well.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is superb. The engineers that support customers are Java developers and have a deep understanding of the issues and resolutions. This is one of the biggest selling points for MuleSoft.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used Apache Camel and Spring Integration. However, they require more technical involvement than MuleSoft ESB.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is done with a simple deployable .zip file. It is very simple to set up and run.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is tailored to the customer. As such, I would recommend speaking with your account representative.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Dell Boomi, Informatica, and Talend. However, for the given use case, MuleSoft came out on top.
What other advice do I have?
Focus on the business problem you want to solve, as the technical integration in MuleSoft is relatively simple.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are a partner.
Mulesoft Developer at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
A user-friendly lightweight enterprise service bus and integration framework
Pros and Cons
- "I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier."
- "The initial setup could be more straightforward."
What is our primary use case?
We use Mule ESB to integrate different products like SAP and Salesforce. We also use it to transform data and communicate it in different versions.
What is most valuable?
I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup could be more straightforward.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Mule ESB for about a year and a half.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Mule ESB is better than Oracle.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is complex because of the Maven part.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Mule ESB an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Principal Architect And Management Council Member at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It has changed our approach towards integration. HTTP/Messaging listener services, data transformation and connection handling are now redundant.
Pros and Cons
- "Mule Expression Language"
- "Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."
What is most valuable?
In order of importance:
- Connectors
- Data Weave
- Mule Expression Language
How has it helped my organization?
It has changed our approach towards integration, making plumbing functions such as HTTP/Messaging listener services, data transformation and connection handling redundant.
What needs improvement?
Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome.
For how long have I used the solution?
1 year as a developer and architect.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Deployment of custom flows is troublesome and fraught with difficulty
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It helps in managing APIs, but many of the customers feel that the licensing costs are too much
What is our primary use case?
- API integration with many backend systems, deployment options, testing.
- It helps me to manage API as well.
How has it helped my organization?
- For API creation and integrations in agile mode.
- Reduces the development cost and time as we work in agile mode.
What is most valuable?
Connectors: It has many connectors and components that really help to complete the development very quickly.
What needs improvement?
- Support, and with respect to licensing cost.
- Many of the customers feel that the licensing cost is much.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Applications Architect at Informatica Delta
We have seen a significant improvement in our processes
Pros and Cons
- "The architecture based on events has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company."
- "The payment system needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
The integration of an ERP system with a payment system in order to improve accounting information and invoice management.
How has it helped my organization?
We have seen a significant improvement in our processes: Response time decreased significantly and integration of services became faster.
What is most valuable?
The architecture based on events: It has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company.
What needs improvement?
- The payment system
- The accounting and financial areas
- The provisioning and enrollment system, because the response time was short.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
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Updated: February 2025
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