Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM API Connect vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers ROI by reducing costs, increasing innovation, and leveraging APIs, though pricing may challenge smaller companies.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
 

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
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform offers responsive support, praised by premium users, though some find response times slow and use community resources.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
The support team is responsive and helpful.
The Salesforce team offers different levels of support.
 

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
7.5
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform provides scalable cloud solutions, offering auto-scalability and varying costs, suitable for medium to large organizations.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is quite scalable, and it meets our use cases with no issues preventing implementation.
MuleSoft provides the ability to scale, yet it is costly to do so.
 

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
7.7
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is reliable, stable, with minimal issues, better on-prem scalability, handling low volumes well in large organizations.
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.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform needs improvements in error handling, documentation, support, integration, AI, security, and interface for better performance.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
MuleSoft is considered expensive, so pricing is a major concern.
Currently, it uses other standards, but adopting OpenAPI, the standard in the market, would be beneficial.
When dealing with multiple transactions or trading, the system can lose control, and tracking becomes hectic.
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers scalable solutions with high costs, suitable for large enterprises, available in SaaS and on-premise versions.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform's pricing, though complex and costly, is justified by features but may deter smaller organizations.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
I do not know the specific costs, but given that it is part of MuleSoft, I suspect it is not cheap.
MuleSoft is considered one of the more expensive products in the market.
The platform reduces manual workload in maintaining infrastructure, but it does come with some cost considerations.
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect excels with strong security, integration, usability, analytics, flexibility, and scalability, enhancing API management and monetization.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform excels in API management, hybrid integrations, and offers versatile deployment with strong monitoring and user-friendly interface.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform helps to standardize data integration approaches, making it easier to implement integration projects.
The most valuable feature is the full lifecycle management, including Anypoint Designer and Exchange, as well as Discofolio API.
The platform is integrated with Salesforce, making it preferable when using Salesforce products.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
API Management (8th)
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Ranking in Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (4th), Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (5th), Cloud Data Integration (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 2.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is 10.0%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
 

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.
Mohan BS - PeerSpot reviewer
A useful tool to integrate applications and for data transformations that need to improve in the area of price and support
The main area where improvements are required in the product revolves around budgeting. The cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required, especially when compared to other tools, like Dell Boomi or Oracle. Mule Anypoint Platform is made available with many components, and whether users use them or not depends on their choices. For example, though there is a tool called Anypoint MQ, our organization prefers to pay and use Kafka, as we don't want to use MuleSoft Anypoint MQ. In Mule Anypoint Platform, there needs to be proper segregation to help users identify what they need and don't need, making it an area where users need to be careful when opting for MuleSoft. Mule Anypoint Platform is an integration tool and not an ETL solution. When a user has to deal with a huge number of data, then Mule Anypoint Platform should not be a preferred choice since it can only be used for lightweight purposes revolving around APIs. There is a need to have a clear architectural decision made before opting for Mule Anypoint Platform. When there is a requirement for heavy data transformation, then users need to decide whether to go with Mule Anypoint Platform or any other platform available in the market. Though the tool comes with many useful components, it depends on whether the user plans to use all of its features. Recently, the product has come up with a new feature that is similar to an API catalog. MuleSoft had come up with the UAPIM feature almost eight months to a year ago, which had some concerns in the area of budgeting. Whether you build APIs using Javacore or any other tools, they can be cataloged using MuleSoft's UAPIM feature, for which users need to pay an extra amount, making it an area of concern for users. It would be great if MuleSoft's support team could provide help with the area of Kubernetes.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

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...
What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?
I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?
This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.