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IBM API Connect vs TIBCO Cloud API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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)
TIBCO Cloud API Management
Ranking in API Management
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Cloud API Management is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM API Connect6.0%
TIBCO Cloud API Management1.0%
Other93.0%
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.
AftabAlam - PeerSpot reviewer
Trust and reliability have been established with long-term usage and significant integration benefits
TIBCO Cloud API Management offers API management plus the ability to orchestrate all inbound and outbound API calls. When an API is exposed to the external system, it functions as a single integration. Behind the scenes, you can perform extensive API modeling, aggregation, and downstream systems can have more than one API and give the response back to a single API call. It has many features such as orchestration rule engine, which makes it quite good. TIBCO Cloud API Management has brought numerous benefits for our organization, especially in product maturity and support. Sales and support are strong areas, and I think it is very good. If they do not get the right support, then they should consider other options. The sales and support also provides cost optimization.

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."
"It allows enterprises to expose some of their tech to outside stakeholders."
"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 most valuable feature is the security we get from this solution. I know of a bank that uses it to ensure that everything is secure. The second feature I like is the retail environment, where we actually want to be able to provide as many suppliers and consumers with APIs as possible. If you are well-trained in the writing of RESTful API's, you can actually publish an API in a matter of minutes, test it, and publish it."
"It has all of the tools that are needed for the specific mission."
"The most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it protects our backend system. We are exposing services to external parties and using this solution to protect the backend system, and to have a navigation in between."
"It is easy to work with ."
"The control that we have and the security features are very valuable. With regard to API implementation or API orchestration, it works very well in the cloud because as soon as you create an API with one click, you can actually expose your APIs."
"Very few outages or SLA issues."
"Conversion to RESTful and SOAP protocols and management console (can manage individually throttled settings to manage our service levels for customers)."
"The platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token refresh, throttling, and enforcement of payloads."
"We can completely manage the APIs at the org level and BU (business unit) level."
"This has provided a new stream of traffic and exposure of our catalogue beyond the normal web store offering."
"The solution is a good general API manager. They have a few propriety features but are offering items that are standard in the industry as well."
 

Cons

"Automation for our Domino applications could be improved."
"The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support."
"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."
"The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this can be more decentralized components."
"In terms of what needs improvement, some of the product documentation could be better."
"The monetization of the API could be improved. The pricing for the consumer is also very important to improve this solution."
"The solution is not scalable."
"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."
"It lacks many features at the API gateway compared to other solutions."
"It's not that user-friendly, and security-wise when you try to implement the security layer on top of it, it's not that easy either."
"I'd like to see TIBCO integrate authentication and security features into Mashery."
"The way agile life cycle is working needs improvement. I also want to see more support for open API standards. I want to see some improvement on the protocol transformation. That is quite missing now. These are the three main issues."
"They can fix some stability issues and probably make it more user-friendly so that not only an IT savvy person but an end-user can also easily navigate through this solution."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management should improve its installation and make it easy."
"The security needs improvement, specifically, propagation of security to an API. Calling other APIs is something that is missing in the product and that makes us think about going to a competitor."
"Policy management has been a bit of a concern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."
"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 price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing."
"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."
"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."
"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."
"Its price is pretty reasonable. There are some lightweight API options available in the market, but given the feature set that TIBCO provides, its price is really reasonable."
"Licensing is quite flexible."
"We have secured terms on which we have been happy to renew for a number of years."
"TIBCO Cloud API Management is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

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 TIBCO Cloud API Management?
The platform's most valuable features are its capabilities to support security measures such as tokenization, token refresh, throttling, and enforcement of payloads.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Cloud API Management?
My primary role was to assess the solution from a capability perspective. So, there are some issues with the licensing cost.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Cloud API Management?
There are some areas for improvement in TIBCO Cloud API Management, especially regarding network protocols such as SMPP, SMTP, GVI, SVI, and Diameter which could show performance issues in terms of...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Mashery API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
uShip, Sabre, TouchTunes, Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, athenahealth, Coca-Cola Enterprises, CentralIndex.com, Constant Contact, Edmunds.com, FoodEssentials, Getty Images, Klout, Rovi, Rotten Tomatoes, Sportradar, TomTom, ACTIVE.com
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. TIBCO Cloud API Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.