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3scale API Management vs IBM API Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
7.9
3scale API Management delivers quick ROI with cost savings and simplicity, ideal for small to medium-sized enterprises.
Sentiment score
6.9
IBM API Connect enhances profitability and efficiency by reducing development time, improving security, and enabling seamless system integration.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
3scale API Management's customer support is mixed, with better pre-sales support and technical help but post-purchase challenges.
Sentiment score
6.4
IBM API Connect support is proactive and expert but variable in speed, with regional availability challenges noted by users.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
3scale API Management is highly scalable, handling enterprise demands and integrating well into existing technology stacks with high availability.
Sentiment score
7.4
IBM API Connect offers excellent scalability through on-premise and cloud solutions, supporting enterprise-level operations and customization features.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
3scale API Management is stable and resource-efficient, rated highly for reliability with no major production issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect is generally stable and reliable, especially in government and banking, despite occasional upgrade issues.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
 

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management
Ranking in API Management
19th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.3%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Luis Bonilla - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides cost savings while maintaining the same functionality and capabilities
There were two main reasons for consideration. One of them was the cost. It is true that the other solution had more capabilities, but we didn't have plans to use them. We didn't need them, but the cost was slightly higher. Also, we were already working with the Red Hat solution and integrating it with some other solutions we have in place. It was better and more convenient for us. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features
While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Educational Organization
13%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?
I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments. I don't deal with licensing, but compared to other IBM products, the licensing is not significantly higher.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ ( /categories/message-queue-mq...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about 3scale API Management vs. IBM API Connect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.