IBM API Connect vs SwaggerHub comparison

IBM and SmartBear are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while SmartBear is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 5.0% mindshare in APIM, compared to SmartBear’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SmartBear users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 79 IBM API Connect reviews

6,218 Views
5,907 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SwaggerHub

Read 12 SwaggerHub reviews

1,449 Views
1,449 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM API Connect

SwaggerHub

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and SwaggerHub serve overlapping use cases in the API management sector, but IBM API Connect seems to have the upper hand for large enterprises due to its integration capabilities and scalability, while SwaggerHub is preferred for its superior design and ease of use.

Features: IBM API Connect provides robust lifecycle API management, secure gateway services, and detailed analytics, making it ideal for enterprises managing APIs in large environments. SwaggerHub focuses on collaborative API design with auto-generated documentation and seamless integration with popular development environments, making it essential for teams prioritizing precision.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect could enhance user interface simplicity and streamline excessive configuration steps, improving onboarding for new users. Expanding its documentation resources and enhancing tools for real-time monitoring are also areas to consider. SwaggerHub, while excellent in API design, could improve its scalability for larger enterprise needs, expand integration options beyond popular development environments, and offer more robust analytics capabilities to enhance decision-making insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect offers a flexible deployment model, supporting both cloud and on-premises setups, with extensive support for seamless integration. Its customer service is strong, ensuring smooth deployment processes. SwaggerHub's cloud-based approach simplifies deployment for agile teams, supported by efficient design-focused customer service channels.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect involves a higher initial setup cost but offers substantial ROI through its comprehensive API management capabilities, particularly for enterprises with large-scale needs. SwaggerHub's more accessible pricing allows for quicker ROI through efficient design tools and faster deployment, appealing to budget-conscious organizations focused on rapid development.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

December 2025

Download the complete report

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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

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (12th)

SwaggerHub

Ranking in API Management

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

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 SwaggerHub is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM API Connect	5.0%
SwaggerHub	1.5%
Other	93.5%

API Management

Featured Reviews

Sairathish Murugesan

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.

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Manish Indupuri

senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Has streamlined API documentation and integration workflows across cross-functional teams

Documenting SwaggerHub has a standard and consistent structure of API definitions, and it automatically generates interactive documentation which helps the developers to understand everything. There are certain areas where SwaggerHub can go beyond here as formatting options for documentation pages are restricted, and the import and export options of API collections are complex in SwaggerHub. It provides various collaboration tools where we can work and do it. The strong validation against the API maintains conformity and reduces errors. That part is very great in SwaggerHub. Overall, scalability and stability-wise, it varies high compared to the competitors, but there are still certain areas where competitors are providing various customizations. SwaggerHub can understand those aspects and implement them as well. The complex import and export of API calls and collaborations can be challenging in SwaggerHub. If they can make it easier for us, that would be great. Their performance is degraded if there is too much load on the API. The customization and doc formatting options for documentation pages are restricted in SwaggerHub. A few of my teammates have complained that they find the UI unintuitive where it requires multiple clicks for simple tasks. SwaggerHub is a great tool, but these limitations can be addressed to make things better and easier.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"DataPower Gateway holds significant value for us as it serves as the cornerstone of our enterprise security controls."

"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 is a very scalable solution."

"It acts as a central gateway for both external APIs and underlying systems. It's basically a central middleware for hosting APIs to the internet and consuming APIs from internal systems. It provides central governance for any APIs going outside the network, ensuring security and a common contract for API definitions."

"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."

"Overall, I rate it nine out of ten."

"It is easy to use and stable."

More IBM API Connect pros

"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."

"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy and not at all difficult."

"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."

"It is a stable solution."

"SwaggerHub plays a crucial role in order to bring teams and automate things faster and also reduce the man-hours and increase the work efficiency."

"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."

"SwaggerHub has significantly improved how my organization designs, documents, and manages APIs, centralizing API management so that all API definitions are stored in one location, which makes it easy for stakeholders, developers, QA, DevOps, and products to access the latest version."

More SwaggerHub pros

Cons

"Understanding the architecture, deployment criteria, and communication methods of the installation can be time-consuming."

"The solution is not scalable."

"Support for this platform could still be improved. It also needs to have more levels of versatility. Its compatibility and integration with different platforms also need improvement."

"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."

"Improving the documentation would be beneficial as it currently presents navigation challenges. Incorporating a step-by-step guide could facilitate the integration or migration of various systems, including databases. The existing documentation only comprises plain text, hence incorporating more interactive instructions could enhance its usefulness."

"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."

"Debugging could be improved."

"I would like to see support for non-Java based services. We struggle a bit to be able to deploy and connect our .NET services because of things like data types. We had to map a couple of things. For one solution provider, we had to move them to .NET Core before we could use it properly. I would like to see more agnostic tool service platforms rather than moving it more towards Java or open source."

More IBM API Connect cons

"We have to use additional tools to test APIs."

"SwaggerHub's UI needs to be improved as it looks very old school."

"SwaggerHub could be improved with better integration for tools."

"It has limited functionality...Unfortunately, some of its features are not what we need."

"In SwaggerHub, I appreciate that it is a powerful platform for API design and collaboration, but currently, the access control is somewhat limited."

"The scalability aspect of SwaggerHub can be improved. It becomes a bit unreliable when the load is increased and isn't up to par with expectations for scalability."

"The review process should be improved. There seem to be some gaps, at least for us, for the editing part because we would like to have a full request review mechanism. They support some comments, but it is really hard to manage those comments. We would like to use the full request. Therefore, we are now looking to integrate with repositories. It has integration with Bitbucket and GitHub, but we have some internal constraints, and we need to move some of the repositories to GitHub. Our source code is on-premise in Bitbucket, and it was a bit of a problem for us to integrate. Now we are transitioning our repositories to GitHub, and hopefully, we can enable the integration. This will probably solve the problem with the review and approval. Its customization should also be improved. There are limitations around the support for the developer portal. There should be more customization options for the website that you can use as a developer portal. Currently, it has only Swagger UI with minimal customization. You cannot actually add additional pages and documentation for explaining concepts and general things. That's why we have started to look around to see what other tools are doing. They should also allow tagging on the API. We would like to add some tagging on the API to reflect certain things. Currently, any metadata that you would like to have has to be a part of the spec. You cannot do anything else. It should also have support for Open API 3.1, which was released at the beginning of the year. It would be great to be able to switch to that."

"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."

More SwaggerHub cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The pricing is significantly high."

"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."

"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."

"I haven't seen anyone go from on-premise to the cloud. In fact, I am seeing people go from the cloud to on-premise because the costs can quickly grow on the cloud."

"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."

"It is quite an expensive product."

"It is expensive when compared to other products in this class. There were no extra fees for add-ons or technical support."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

"It has a yearly subscription, but I am not sure."

"The tool is cheap."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Insurance Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	61

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	8

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?

I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing details.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?

In SwaggerHub, I appreciate that it is a powerful platform for API design and collaboration, but currently, the access control is somewhat limited. I would love to see enhanced permissions allowing...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?

I have worked for Arden University, University of Sheffield, and Nanyang Technological University. For those institutions, I used Amazon AppStream for backend validations. When working for Prolific...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering SwaggerHub?

Based on my limited experience with SwaggerHub, I can share a few practical recommendations for implementing it effectively. Before onboarding multiple teams, it's important to define naming conven...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 31% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 5% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs IBM API Connect

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM API Connect Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs SwaggerHub

Compared 13% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 13% of the time

Apigee vs SwaggerHub

Compared 10% of the time

Postman Enterprise vs SwaggerHub

Compared 8% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 4% of the time

More SwaggerHub Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

January 2026

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

SwaggerHub

January 2026

Download SwaggerHub product report

Overview

IBM API Connect is an API management tool providing robust security, seamless REST and SOAP conversion, and flexible deployment options for diverse cloud environments. It aids organizations in securing and monetizing their APIs while streamlining the development process.

IBM API Connect offers features like a security gateway, API lifecycle management, and integration with DataPower. Its intuitive interface enhances ease of use, supporting extensive analytics and traffic management. However, there are areas for improvement in automation, system integration, and user configuration. Organizations can deploy API Connect on-premises or in the cloud, delivering secure access control and analytics for banking, financial services, and government sectors. Compliance with standards like PSD2 ensures secure external API exposure and integration with multiple systems.

What are the most important features of IBM API Connect?

Security Gateway: Provides robust protection and data security for APIs.
Seamless Conversion: Facilitates easy conversion between REST and SOAP protocols.
API Management: Supports full API lifecycle management for efficient development.
DataPower Integration: Integrates seamlessly with DataPower for enhanced functionality.
Developer Portal: Offers a user-friendly interface for managing APIs and developers.
Analytics: Delivers powerful insights through comprehensive API analytics.
Flexible Deployment: Supports deployment on different cloud platforms for versatility.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from IBM API Connect?

Traffic Management: Efficiently manages high volumes of API traffic without compromising performance.
Data Protection: Ensures data is protected during API communication.
API Monetization: Facilitates API monetization strategies to drive revenue.
Scalability: Provides scalable solutions to handle growing demands seamlessly.

In specific industries like banking, financial services, and government sectors, IBM API Connect plays a crucial role in API management, orchestration, and regulation tasks. It provides secure access, control, and compliance with industry standards, serving as an essential gateway for data exchange and integration across multiple systems.

IBM

SwaggerHub is an integrated API Development platform, built for teams, that brings the core capabilities of the Swagger framework to design, build, document and deploy APIs. SwaggerHub enables development teams to collaborate and coordinate the entire lifecycle of an API with the flexibility to integrate with the toolset of your choice.

SmartBear

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

December 2025

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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