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IBM API Connect vs Perforce Acana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 8, 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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)
Perforce Acana
Ranking in API Management
30th
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 July 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.3%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Acana is 0.5%, down from 0.7% 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.
Saurav Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."
"The support is good and active. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features are stability and security."
"Policy configurations are pretty easy."
"API Connect is a very good platform for the development of APIs."
"The capabilities are very good."
"The technical support is good. Whenever we need anything, we have our IT team work with IBM to change whatever requirement is needed."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"Good interface, intuitive solution."
"The tool's authentication mechanism is easy to implement. We had to define a few parameters."
"It allowed us to publish and replace pre-essential transactions in one place, with a uniformity in terms of control and policies."
 

Cons

"The solution would be better if it had cloud functionalities."
"We ran it on top of the Kubernetes cluster, so it wasn't a standalone service. In the worst-case scenario, API Connect couldn't stay online if all the containers went down. We had to restart all the services. We shut down all the containers automatically one by one."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"Our main pain points are in these two areas: creating a better developer portal and improving stability in terms of synchronization and monetization."
"We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from IBM. I'd like to see increased flexibility, more frequent updates with new features, an efficient upgrade process, and additional AI capabilities for future releases."
"Business applications could be exposed to users."
"It would be nice to have a SaaS solution that can be deployed into the cloud."
"Due to bugs in integration, we have to look for workaround on fixing and using DataPower as gateway."
"Lacks an integrated billing feature."
"Akana API Management needs to improve its documentation."
"The product has new features that we are going to implement in the next few months, such as API management and analytic reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite an expensive product."
"API Connect is quite pricey."
"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"Pricing for IBM API Connect varies, e.g. it could be subscription-based. Deploying it on private cloud also means you have to own most of the software licensing."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."
"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%
Educational Organization
12%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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?
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 do you like most about Akana API Management?
The tool's authentication mechanism is easy to implement. We had to define a few parameters.
What needs improvement with Akana API Management?
Akana API Management needs to improve its documentation.
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.