IBM App Connect vs Zapier comparison

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IBM App Connect

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

IBM App Connect and Zapier are leading solutions in the integration tools category. IBM App Connect holds an advantage in complex environments due to its extensive integration tools and security features, while Zapier excels in user-friendliness and built-in integrations.

Features: IBM App Connect offers robust integration tools and adapters, supporting complex IBM and non-IBM ecosystems with high security and reliability. It provides scalability and middleware functions. Zapier is known for its ease of use, providing point-and-click workflows and a wide range of built-in integrations, perfect for non-technical users seeking quick and diverse automation.

Room for Improvement: IBM App Connect could improve support responsiveness, user-friendliness, and enhance its audit/logging features. Users also seek better integration capabilities with non-IBM systems. Zapier would benefit from enhanced Google Sheets integrations, features for two-way synchronization, and more comprehensive logic-based workflows. Expanding its app library and improving customer support response times are also identified areas for growth.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM App Connect can be deployed on-premises, hybrid, private, and public cloud environments, requiring technical expertise for setup and facing occasional support delays. The support quality varies. Zapier is primarily a public cloud solution with straightforward setup and generally positive support ratings, although some users desire faster response times.

Pricing and ROI: IBM App Connect involves higher licensing costs, typically favored by large enterprises leveraging its ecosystem for integrated solutions. It requires expertise, reflecting its higher costs but promises ROI over time. Zapier offers a flexible pricing model, starting with a free plan, which scales as needs grow. It is cost-effective for startups and smaller companies, delivering quick ROI through easy-to-deploy automations, although costs can rise with increased usage.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM App Connect vs. Zapier Report (Updated: June 2025).

IBM App Connect vs. Zapier

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Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

7.2

IBM App Connect enhances efficiency and ROI with centralized integrations, requiring expertise for long-term success across various sectors.

Sentiment score

6.5

Users experience benefits from Zapier's automation and cost savings, though calculating specific ROI can be challenging.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

In a scenario where employing three resources for three months might cost approximately $18,000 to $20,000, Zapier provides substantial cost savings.

Tarkeshwar Kumar

Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.6

IBM App Connect support is responsive and competent, but inconsistencies and delays exist, especially in non-urgent and local support.

Sentiment score

7.2

Mixed experiences with Zapier support: praised for responsiveness and knowledge, yet some note delays and lack of chat.

When opening a ticket with the global team, problems are resolved promptly and effectively.

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

The technical support from IBM is good.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Developer at Wipro Limited

Their technical support is good; they respond promptly and are very helpful.

MuhammadImran

Go High Level Manager at Virtual Worker Now

This can help if you need assistance, as you can communicate with the community and support system, and most issues are already resolved by AI.

Sachin Shrtivastava

Automation Engineer at Axe Automation

Sometimes, in my early days, when I was stuck with something, they helped me solve these issues, and even helped me solve some of my automations.

Muhammad Bazal Iqbal

Chief Executive Officer at FlowVeo

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

IBM App Connect is praised for scalability in cloud and container environments, with suggestions for improved administration features.

Sentiment score

7.6

Zapier is ideal for small businesses prioritizing simple tasks, though costs and stability may concern larger organizations.

IBM App Connect demonstrates good scalability.

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

I would rate the scalability of IBM App Connect as nine out of ten.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Developer at Wipro Limited

Zapier is suitable for small or simpler automation but not for complex ones.

Sachin Shrtivastava

Automation Engineer at Axe Automation

Scaling it gets quite expensive, and while I cannot evaluate it purely from a technology perspective, compared to Workato, I would give Zapier a seven for scalability.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Product Owner | Integration

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.5

IBM App Connect is stable, with high reliability, though occasional issues arise from environment, configuration, or resource management.

Sentiment score

6.9

Users find Zapier reliable, with minor issues often linked to third-party tools, and rate stability highly for varied needs.

Some companies require multiple configurations, including ODBC connections, JDBC connections, different BI databases, main databases, and replication servers.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

In my current company, we had significant challenges with Zapier regarding maintenance, as Zaps were often broken, not necessarily due to Zapier, but due to changes in the input variables.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Product Owner | Integration

Room For Improvement

IBM App Connect users seek improved logging, interface enhancements, better community support, and simpler, more cost-effective version transitions.

Zapier users face issues with Google Sheets, insufficient integrations, complex workflows, high costs, and limited customization and support.

Version 13 includes around 200 features with cloud platform compatibility.

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

I find it particularly good for on-premises and now cloud use.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Developer at Wipro Limited

The error message options in the dashboard should be improved. It should be user-friendly so that beginners or non-technical users can figure out the problems and solutions on their own.

Awais Mehmood

Webflow Developer at Qureos

You can build similar or dependent automations in one Zap, which helps with understanding the process without switching between different records.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Product Owner | Integration

I would appreciate if there would be a feature where we can use actions right after loops. Currently, you cannot use any other action after the loop. Everything needs to be within the loop.

Muhammad Bazal Iqbal

Chief Executive Officer at FlowVeo

Setup Cost

IBM App Connect's annual pricing varies by transactions and partnership, with complexities and flexibility in setup and licensing.

Enterprise buyers find Zapier cost-effective for its integrations, despite some viewing it as pricier than alternatives.

For insurance companies with simple JDBC connections, the process is straightforward.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

The pricing is in accordance with market standards and even lower in some cases.

Tarkeshwar Kumar

Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC

The pricing of Zapier is slightly higher compared to other market automation tools such as Pabbly, Make.com, and N8N, which have good features but are priced lower than Zapier.

MuhammadImran

Go High Level Manager at Virtual Worker Now

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Valuable Features

IBM App Connect excels with robust integration, user-friendly design, scalability, and flexibility for seamless, secure, and complex integrations.

Zapier offers over 20,000 integrations, automating workflows without coding, enhancing productivity with user-friendly, drag-and-drop functionality.

The transformation capabilities in IBM App Connect are particularly beneficial.

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

The features I find most valuable are message routing, message transformation, and protocol translation.

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM App Connect report

Developer at Wipro Limited

They have approximately 7,000 connections.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zapier report

Product Owner | Integration

Even a person with no technical knowledge can use Zapier to create automations.

Muhammad Bazal Iqbal

Chief Executive Officer at FlowVeo

The automation capabilities are impressive.

reviewer2716083

Business Intelligence Developer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees

Categories and Ranking

IBM App Connect

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zapier

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM App Connect is 5.1%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zapier is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Transforms data efficiently and navigates licensing challenges with ease

Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

The transition between version 12 and version 13 presents some challenges. While version 12 had approximately 10 features, version 13 includes around 200 features with cloud platform compatibility. The learning curve for developers moving from version 12 to 13 could be smoother. When using new components, better context explanations would be beneficial. In version 13, accessing new features requires connecting through a web browser, which can be challenging to understand. The explanation of new features could be more user-friendly.

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Sachin Shrtivastava

Automation Engineer at Axe Automation

Automation of simple tasks improves with user-friendly interface but needs enhancement in handling complex scenarios

In my opinion, what could be improved in Zapier is its UI, which operates as a one-line system. Compared to Make.com and other tools that have a drag-and-drop system, this is lacking. If the scenario or automation is complex, it becomes difficult to create and deploy because of various routes. For example, with 20 routes, it becomes really difficult to create them due to certain limits, and the UI is not conducive for viewing all the routes.

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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM App Connect?

I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...

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

Configuration time varies by implementation. For insurance companies with simple JDBC connections, the process is straightforward. However, companies requiring multiple configurations for ODBC, JDB...

What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?

I am a developer specializing in IBM App Connect. We have a customer interested in comparing ESB tools, such as webMethods, which was previously owned by Software AG company before IBM acquired the...

What do you like most about Zapier?

The product's most valuable feature is automation.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zapier?

The pricing is in accordance with market standards and even lower in some cases. The license setup cost is reasonable.

What needs improvement with Zapier?

You can build similar or dependent automations in one Zap, which helps with understanding the process without switching between different records. I would appreciate quicker response times and more...

webMethods.io vs IBM App Connect

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Product Reports

IBM App Connect

Download IBM App Connect product report

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Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron

No data available

Overview

Rapidly connect public clouds, private clouds and on-premises application

App Connect Professional is IBM’s cloud integration offering which delivers an integration solution
• With ease-of-use, flexibility and increased responsiveness to the evolving business needs, while removing the daunting complexities of integration.
• Provides the powerful combination of a ‘simple integration experience’ for business users looking to automate how their applications talk to each other; coupled with a ‘configuration based integration’ approach for IT.
• App Connect Professional is for the teams and integration developers who need to solve more complex problems and need powerful tooling for integration scenarios

IBM

Zapier is a tool for primarily non-technical users to connect together web apps.

An integration between two apps is called a Zap. A Zap is made up of a Trigger and one or more Actions or Searches.

Whenever the trigger happens in one app, Zapier will automatically perform the actions or searches in another app in order.

Zaps are very lightweight and easy to set up. Zaps do not import or export old data (they only operate on new items created after the Zap is enabled). Zaps are also not kept in sync ("two way syncing") after the Zap is triggered.

Zaps are deceivingly simple if you're used to dealing with complex and difficult integrations. Their simplicity is what enables anyone to create them.

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.

BuzzFeed, Groupon, Spotify, Columbia University, FOX

IBM App Connect vs. Zapier