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IBM API Connect vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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
6.9
IBM API Connect enhances profitability and efficiency by reducing development time, improving security, and enabling seamless system integration.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Azure API Management boosts integration quality, reduces lead times, and offers significant financial benefits while impacting ROI through costs.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
Proper configuration of the solution, implementation strategy and correct scaling tier selection are other factors that influence the ROI.
It helps connect all multi-environment applications to a single dashboard and give beautiful reports.
If I am working in AWS and with Azure, I see that Azure is much easier and helps save time while also being able to manage and deploy the API services.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM API Connect support is proactive and expert but variable in speed, with regional availability challenges noted by users.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Azure API Management support is generally positive but needs improved response times and expertise for complex issues.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
The documentation from Microsoft helps our company to solve issues on our own.
The initial support engineers are often not qualified.
I logged an incident, and it was resolved promptly within three hours.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM API Connect offers excellent scalability through on-premise and cloud solutions, supporting enterprise-level operations and customization features.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Azure API Management offers scalable, cloud-based flexibility, efficiently handling multiple APIs and supporting thousands of users, though costs may rise.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
I've worked with multiple tools from an observability perspective, such as Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, and I find KQL and APIM amazing and filled with useful features.
It handles our current workload well, and I'm optimistic it can scale effectively as our needs grow.
There are no limitations to adding any number of devices.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect is generally stable and reliable, especially in government and banking, despite occasional upgrade issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Azure API Management is reliable, stable, and integrates well, offering scalability and high availability with minor performance improvement needs.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
I can't guarantee its stability or flexibility until all our databases and financial systems are integrated.
Microsoft Azure API Management is very stable.
With high scalability and availability, it supports many users and endpoints without significant issues.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better integration, automation, monitoring, documentation, and usability, facing issues in setup, costs, and support.
Microsoft Azure API Management users face high costs, integration issues, and demand better features, customization, and improved deployment efficiency.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
The service is extensive and expensive, and this added flexibility would make it more manageable and less prone to errors.
It's quite expensive, which could be a barrier for some users.
Documentations for the product should include examples of implementation.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
Microsoft Azure API Management offers varied pricing models appealing to businesses, but premium features can become costly when scaling.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
It's an expensive solution.
However, once you scale up to your full volume, it'll be more expensive.
Microsoft Azure is an expensive solution not for the large enterprises but for medium and small.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
Microsoft Azure API Management offers user-friendly API orchestration with robust features including security, scalability, and comprehensive Azure integration.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
The platform's most valuable features are its rule-based permissions and comprehensive API lifecycle management capabilities.
The ability to create a subscription model for APIs allows companies to monetize valuable data and share it securely.
The analytics phase of API Management is very beneficial for tracking API usage and identifying suspicious users.
 

Categories and Ranking

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) (8th)
Microsoft Azure API Management
Ranking in API Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 16.7%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Praveen_Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined operations with gateway and authentication features
Azure API Management has helped streamline our operations by acting as a gateway for upstream and downstream applications. It provides authentication and authorization, ensuring that both verified and suspicious users are managed efficiently. The use of analytics within API Management is also valuable for tracking user behavior and ensuring security.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.