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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) (8th)
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 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 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

"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"It allows enterprises to expose some of their tech to outside stakeholders."
"It's quite flexible and easy to deploy, especially for beginners. It has almost all the features that an API gateway should have."
"DataPower Gateway holds significant value for us as it serves as the cornerstone of our enterprise security controls."
"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."
"The product gathers data to measure API performance."
"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"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."
"Good interface, intuitive solution."
 

Cons

"The platform’s integration with the payment gateway needs enhancement. The setup process and support services could be improved."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"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."
"The design time setup has a lot of customizable fields, but we need certain standard fields to be added, such as what all of the consuming systems are. This needs to be very clearly articulated during the design time."
"In the next version, I don't know if they've already been included it or not, but the designer and all the tools should be on the cloud. I don't want any external installation or local installation."
"Debugging could be improved."
"One thing about API Connect that could be improved is the security schemes. There are so many security schemes, and from a product perspective, IBM could improve the user experience of the configuration security scheme."
"The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side."
"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

"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."
"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."
"It is a pretty expensive tool."
"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"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."
"The pricing is significantly high."
"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"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
20%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.