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IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM Integration Bus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd), API Management (12th)
IBM Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.0%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 21.9%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"My favorite feature is the XML-based DFDL mapping, which is a tool that allows you to graphically map legacy data formats to modern data formats."
"The cost is pretty cheap, compared to what else is available in the market."
"IBM Integration Bus' most valuable features are its performance, fast and easy development, and easy support."
"The message queue connectors are the most valuable feature. They have built-in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP and Oracle Database."
"It can be implemented as an enterprise service bus to seamlessly connect all applications within your enterprise."
"We've been using IBM Integration Bus for seven years to create a service-oriented architecture in our bank and implement SOAR infrastructure using this tool. It helps us with internal services for core banking and different digital channels. We also use it to expose our services to other banks and companies and consume services from outside our bank using proxy servers."
"IBM Integration Bus's best feature is integration."
"One of the most valuable features is App Connect Enterprise makes it possible to deploy it in the OpenShift cluster, which is very good. Overall the solution is very flexible."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"It is a costly product."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"IBM Integration Bus can improve by implementing no-code or drag-and-drop adapters development, similar to what is available in Red Hat."
"They should add connectors to banking applications and other specific industries."
"The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand."
"To scale virtically, is difficult."
"The solution could improve by having built-in implementation and secure monitoring without the need for API Connect."
"IBM could improve its connectivity."
"I would like to be able to build an Integration Bus cluster that is active-active."
"Migrating to this solution is complex and it would be helpful if they had a way to convert existing integrations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"It is a highly-priced solution."
"Our licensing is based on a five-year contract, and as far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"The price is reasonable considering the features we receive."
"The licensing model of IBM Integration Bus is good. It's a yearly subscription. However, the price is depending on the model that you choose. If it's a Cloud version, then you can pay per month or you can pay it annually upfront. There are three-year options available, but it depends on what deployment you have."
"Support costs are high compared to the competition. Otherwise, the support is good."
"The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive."
"The price of the license could be cheaper."
"IBM provides a quite complicated licensing model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP, oracle database, and this Civil connector is there. Of course, we have thi...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
IBM WebSphere ESB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. IBM Integration Bus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.