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IBM API Connect vs Perforce Acana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

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

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (12th)
Perforce Acana
Ranking in API Management
35th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 5.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Acana is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM API Connect5.0%
Perforce Acana0.8%
Other94.2%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

SM
Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Have addressed performance challenges while benefiting from flexible subscription models and reliable user access
To improve IBM API Connect, based on customer experience, you could work on latency. You can increase scalability and availability. If you're connecting with any other cloud, it connects to the infrastructure which needs to be managed with the customers and cloud providers, so if you have a setup, we can handle it easily. I have faced latency issues on the server, related to our management. If you need to stabilize your server based on peak traffic, you need to configure the scalability model. You need to know when traffic peaks, so use auto-scaling when traffic comes. If the application is not in use, the value should be zero, and it starts from zero. Based on customer experience, the value will increase, and when there is no customer servicing, the peak would be reduced, making the value remain zero. Following this approach, you should be able to optimize costs and satisfy customer experience.
Saurav Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineering and AI Intern at .3Lines Venture Capital
Authentication mechanism is easy to implement but improvement is needed in documentation
For API security purposes, we use the tool to host all our APIs. This allows us to take advantage of the security features provided by the platform. With the solution, we can implement rules such as rate limiting and restricting the number of API calls for each user. It acts as a secure gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found IBM API Connect to be highly secure, efficient, easy to deploy, and has a great GUI. It can operate and integrate well with other vendors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft."
"The interface is very nice. It makes the solution easy to use and navigate."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"The developer portal has been the most useful feature."
"API Connect's most valuable feature is its ability to act as a gateway. It's very easy to configure security and everything else in it. You don't have to kill yourself implementing custom configurations."
"The main benefits of IBM API Connect for our API life cycle management are the core API functionalities, the developer's portal, and robust security capabilities. IBM API Connect's security protocols enhance our data protection strategies by offering end-to-end security, mechanisms to counter common attacks like DDoS, and the ability to define policies for API groups to control traffic and prevent unwanted access to our systems."
"It has all of the tools that are needed for the specific mission."
"The best features IBM API Connect offers in my experience are the middleware capabilities, as it can connect the front end, and you can be more secure using JWT tokens with IBM API Connect."
"It allowed us to publish and replace pre-essential transactions in one place, with a uniformity in terms of control and policies."
"Good interface, intuitive solution."
"The tool's authentication mechanism is easy to implement. We had to define a few parameters."
 

Cons

"The solution is not scalable."
"Extracting the data could be improved."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"The product's setup phase and its setup for the users in different environments, along with DevOps integration, are areas of concern where there is a need for improvement."
"IBM API Connect could improve the security of the application and the integration."
"Automation for our Domino applications could be improved."
"I have faced latency issues on the server, related to our management."
"API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database."
"The product has new features that we are going to implement in the next few months, such as API management and analytic reporting."
"Akana API Management needs to improve its documentation."
"Lacks an integrated billing feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"API Connect was highly expensive for us, but the decision to switch was made before I joined the company. It seems like the company bought it, but they didn't know how to use it. After two years, they decided to reevaluate and conduct some cost estimates."
"There was a need to purchase an upfront license or a one-time license or upfront license, but I cannot remember the details about it clearly."
"It is an expensive solution. The licensing model is based on a per-subscription and per-subscriber end-user basis, meaning the price is determined by the end-users of the platform."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."
"For us, the pricing and licensing policies were for an on-premise installation with a fixed cost structure, that matched our budgeting policies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise61
No data available
 

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?
I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing details.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
We are relatively new to IBM API Connect, so I do not have significant improvements to suggest at this time.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
British American Tobacco, Credit Suisse, Daimler, eBay, FOX, Liberty Mutual, Marriott, Mayo Clinic, Skandia, Tata communications
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Perforce Acana and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.