Azul Zulu vs IBM DataPower Gateway comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Azul Systems and IBM are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. Azul Systems is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.8. Azul Systems holds a 3.6% mindshare in AIS, compared to IBM’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Azul Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Azul Zulu

Read 2 Azul Zulu reviews

2,190 Views
1,380 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 32 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

9,668 Views
1,740 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Azul Zulu

IBM DataPower Gateway

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Azul Zulu and IBM DataPower Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Infrastructure solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 913,076 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:

Categories and Ranking

Azul Zulu

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Customer Experience Personalization (25th), AI Content Creation (12th)

IBM DataPower Gateway

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (16th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.6%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Azul Zulu	3.6%
IBM DataPower Gateway	3.9%
Other	92.5%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji

System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support

Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.

Read full review

AkshaySawant

Manager at CSB Bank Ltd

Security features excel but development limitations emerge

We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've had no issues with stability."

"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."

"We did not experience any downtime, even if the number of transactions increased heavily."

"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."

"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."

"What I like most is the stability."

"The solution is robust."

"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."

"Anybody can use it as their security device and as their multi-protocol handling device."

"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

Cons

"It needs a better update daemon. At this time the process is manual and could be an issue on multiple desktop deployments."

"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."

"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients."

"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."

"My experience with the pricing of this product is that pricing is too high and should be reduced."

"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."

"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."

"New users just starting with this product find it a little complex or difficult to use, compared to other products such as AWS."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The licensing cost is very expensive."

"The product is expensive."

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."

"It is an expensive solution."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azul Zulu?

Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?

Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?

My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?

I don't know if the current licensing cost of IBM DataPower Gateway is high, but I think it's acceptable. I don't have any complaints about it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

I noticed that the Gateway Script libraries could be improved, as they are not covering everything I need.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM DataPower Gateway?

The primary purposes for which IBM DataPower Gateway is used include security purposes, and sometimes you need to put some configurations and mapping into the process.

See all answers

Comparisons

Azul Zing vs Azul Zulu

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Hotspot vs Azul Zulu

Compared 12% of the time

Zulu Embedded vs Azul Zulu

Compared 11% of the time

IBM WebSphere Integration Developer vs Azul Zulu

Compared 9% of the time

More Azul Zulu Competitors

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 32% of the time

SwaggerHub vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 4% of the time

OpenLegacy vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 4% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 4% of the time

NGINX Plus vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

September 2026

Download Azul Zulu product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2026

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Also Known As

No data available

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

Overview

Azul Zulu offers an open-source, enterprise-grade build of OpenJDK, widely recognized for its reliability in diverse environments. It provides a cost-effective solution for Java deployments, ensuring compliance and long-term support.

Known for its performance under demanding conditions, Azul Zulu supports a broad range of applications and systems across industries. It's engineered to deliver consistent uptime and performance, making it a trusted option for developers needing robust Java support. Flexibility and seamless integration are key, with Azul Zulu offering a smooth transition path from other JDKs, attracting those who value trusted support and reliability.

What are the most important features of Azul Zulu?

OpenJDK Compatibility: Full compatibility across numerous platforms for seamless operation.
Long-Term Support: Extended support options with regular updates.
Wide Platform Support: Functionality across a broad range of operating systems and hardware.
Cloud Optimization: Specifically optimized for cloud environments.
Compliance and Certifications: Meets security and compliance standards.

What are the best benefits and ROI when evaluating Azul Zulu?

Cost Efficiency: Reduce licensing and operational costs.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet the demands of growing infrastructures.
Enhanced Performance: Improved application performance and speed.
Reduced Downtimes: Minimizes system downtimes with reliable support.
Security: Consistent updates enhance application security.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce implement Azul Zulu to ensure scalable, secure Java platforms that enhance application delivery and performance. Its adaptability makes it ideal for cloud-based innovations, supporting strategic initiatives across diverse sectors.

Azul Systems

IBM DataPower Gateway provides advanced security, multi-protocol transformation, and API management, ensuring appliance-based stability and performance. It supports enterprise-level traffic, facilitating seamless integration and deployment, though it may pose challenges in terms of pricing and user complexity.

IBM DataPower Gateway integrates as an enterprise service bus and API management platform, effectively securing APIs and managing authentication and authorization. Serving large banks and enterprises, it supports B2B transactions with data security and compliance, especially for sectors requiring GDPR adherence. Users benefit from high performance and stability, despite its premium cost and complex configuration needs. Cloud integration, user-friendliness enhancements, and improved documentation are areas where it can advance. It meets the demands of sectors like BFSI by protecting against security threats and supporting significant traffic volumes.

What are key features of IBM DataPower Gateway?

Advanced security functionalities: Comprehensive tools for authentication, authorization, and certificate management.
Multi-protocol transformation: Facilitates seamless conversions across different protocols.
Appliance-based stability: Provides a stable platform for handling enterprise traffic.
API management: Capable of managing APIs efficiently with rate-limiting and other controls.
Efficient troubleshooting tools: Streamlines issue resolution and system maintenance.

What benefits or ROI can users expect?

High performance: Capable of handling large-scale enterprise traffic efficiently.
Easy integration and configuration: Simplifies connecting with existing systems.
Regulatory compliance: Supports adherence to regulations like GDPR.
Protects against security threats: Offers robust security measures for data protection.

IBM DataPower Gateway is prominent in industries requiring rigorous data security and efficient integration, such as BFSI. Large enterprises leverage it for B2B transactions, ensuring regulatory compliance and high-performance standards. It's also implemented in environments demanding robust API security and management.

IBM

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial

RBL Bank, Availity

Buyer's Guide

Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2026

Free Report: Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Azul Zulu vs. IBM DataPower Gateway report.

See our list of best Application Infrastructure vendors.

We monitor all Application Infrastructure reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.