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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 (7th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
IBM Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.0%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 22.0%, up from 21.0% 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 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."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"The solution is stable."
"What I like most is the stability."
"The product helps efficiently work with different connectors from different back-end systems."
"We can have multiple endpoints, and we can integrate different applications from different platforms. In a large-scale enterprise setup, it becomes so easy to establish communication between applications. You can connect an application to other applications, other legacy applications, and databases. You can also connect with those applications that are in the cloud. You can connect with other well-known applications, such as Salesforce, SAP, and Workday, by using IBM Integration Bus."
"It is user-friendly and a value-added tool for banks and other verticals."
"The features I have found most valuable in this solution are transformation and routing."
"The multi-approach and the multi-capabilities are valuable."
"I recommend it for large enterprises but only for specific use cases. You need to have a relatively mature integration practice in your organization to leverage its capabilities fully."
"What I like best are the monitoring features."
"The most valuable feature is that it's robust and its time to market is very short."
 

Cons

"It is a costly product."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"The price could be better. It would also be better if they simplified the code."
"I think security should be more simplified."
"It provides all the features that are required for day-to-day work. So far, I haven't seen any major issues that impact our work. I have been told that IBM App Connect Enterprise, which is the next version of IIB, is really good. It is better than IIB, and it gives you more coverage in terms of application integration."
"They should add connectors to banking applications and other specific industries."
"I would like to be able to build an Integration Bus cluster that is active-active."
"They could integrate AI technologies with the product. Additionally, ongoing developments and enhancements in integration technologies could be beneficial."
"Technical support is something that should be better."
"The product lacks an integrated testing module."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"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."
"IBM Integration Bus solution is expensive and this is one of the reasons we are looking for an alternative, such as MuleSoft."
"It is not cheap. It has its cost. It is one of the high-cost solutions."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive. There are cheaper products in the marketplace."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"IBM Integration Bus is expensive."
"As customers, we always try to buy things as cheaply as possible. But the price for the IBM Integration Bus is fine. When we compare it to competitors, it's pretty much the same. However, there are a lot of open-source integration platforms coming to the market as well. So overall, the price is fine as far as licensed products are concerned."
"IBM Integration Bus itself is prices fair but App-Connect is a bit expensive which we use in conjunction with it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
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: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.