IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle Service Bus comparison

IBM and Oracle are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while Oracle is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.4. IBM holds a 6.6% mindshare in E, compared to Oracle’s 10.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 30 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,383 Views
861 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Oracle Service Bus

Read 31 Oracle Service Bus reviews

1,933 Views
1,933 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

Oracle Service Bus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Oracle Service Bus and IBM DataPower Gateway compete in the middleware and integration solutions category. IBM DataPower Gateway appears to have the upper hand due to its robust security features and appliance hardware advantages.

Features: Oracle Service Bus provides a comprehensive set of integration features such as SOA, JMS, and routing capabilities, allowing for effective interfacing with various systems. It supports multiple protocols and offers service orchestration and composition. IBM DataPower Gateway is recognized for its solid security, appliance hardware, and protocol handling capabilities. It includes an XML firewall, reliable access management, and advanced security features ideal for enterprises with critical security requirements.

Room for Improvement: Oracle Service Bus needs enhancements in logging and error handling frameworks. Users face scalability challenges and problems integrating with modern applications and microservices. There are reported connectivity issues and insufficient technical support responses. IBM DataPower Gateway, while stable, faces user-friendliness challenges and integration difficulties with newer technologies. Improvements in clustering, API integration, and a reduction in complexity and cost are needed. Both products require better technical support and licensing transparency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Oracle Service Bus and IBM DataPower Gateway support deployment options including On-premises, Private Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud. Oracle's technical support is often described as slow but improving. IBM DataPower Gateway, while flexible in deployment, suffers from low user interface satisfaction and complex setups. Users of both solutions express a need for faster response times and accessible documentation to facilitate ease of use.

Pricing and ROI: Oracle Service Bus has a complex pricing model that is expensive, especially with its perpetual licensing requirements, and users sometimes find its support lacking. IBM DataPower Gateway is similarly costly, particularly its appliance version, making it less accessible for smaller organizations. Both solutions deliver non-tangible ROI through improved system integration and operational efficiencies, although pricing is a significant concern for many users.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle Service Bus Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle Service Bus

September 2025

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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 DataPower Gateway

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)

Oracle Service Bus

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.6%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Service Bus is 10.6%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle Service Bus	10.6%
IBM DataPower Gateway	6.6%
Other	82.8%

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant

Manager at CSB Bank Ltd

Security features excel but development limitations emerge

We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

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Radhey Rajput

Sr. IT Analyst at NCR Corporation

Allows seamless integration and connectivity with different types of systems

I would suggest using this solution. Oracle Service Bus is very good. Any organization can use it. So it's very robust and scalable, and its security features are very good. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten because there are some loopholes in service and support. Sometimes, when we have issues and go to Oracle support, they will not give us solutions. Instead, they will ask for so many log files and emails. The product is good, but the support is not.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a scalable solution."

"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."

"You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present."

"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."

"I like the API Gateway feature."

"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."

"If you have an API application in your organization that you want to make safe and secure, in addition to your existing WAF or load balancer, this product comes with all those capabilities:"

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

"I like the ease of deployment and the ease of implementation."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that you can connect with different applications."

"There are always continuous improvements that are happening."

"The flexibility offered by Oracle Service Bus, especially in the latest versions, includes abstracting underlying processes and enabling drag-and-drop mappings from source to destination."

"Monitoring feature that allows tracking of the web's UI development."

"This product is not complicated and very easy to learn."

"API management and defining varying protocols are the most valuable features"

"Overall it is a pretty good solution."

More Oracle Service Bus pros

Cons

"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."

"They should improve the solution's clustering features."

"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."

"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."

"From the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT language. It does not support multiple languages."

"Its support services could be better."

"The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"It needs to support more adapters, because the integration points keep changing and new things keep coming up. It also needs to be more scalable."

"The weak point of OSB is the single point of failure."

"The interface console is very slow. Even in production, we need to increase the RAM or CPU. And even after that, the performance is still not good in production."

"The pricing of the product could be better. It's a bit high."

"While I have not used the latest versions, resource efficiency could be optimized, considering past experiences"

"This solution should work better with RESTful services."

"There are some loopholes in service and support."

"The support for GraphQL needs to be improved, and the response time for global support could be faster."

More Oracle Service Bus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

"The product is expensive."

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too 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."

"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"I'm not aware of how much Oracle Service Bus costs."

"The price of this solution is better than the subscription-based Mule ESB."

"The pricing is on the higher side."

"We have an unlimited yearly license."

"This is a very expensive product and the price varies depending on factors such as the number of processors and the number of users. Our licensing fees are approximately $300,000."

"Oracle Service Bus is a bit expensive"

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	22

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?

This product is definitely expensive because if any issue occurs in the live environment or production environment, and our organization faces some issue with the IBM DataPower Gateway, then the IB...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

I have significant experience with the IBM DataPower Gateway. As a security product, it is very good. However, from the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT...

See all answers

What do you like most about Oracle Service Bus?

The stability is consistently high, with only one notable issue encountered.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Service Bus?

I view both Oracle and IBM products as expensive. There are no significant differences in pricing between these products.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle Service Bus?

The main problem could be related to timeout issues. This can happen due to legacy systems that might not allow the use of microservices. It's a different viewpoint of the system, and such constrai...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 37% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

Mule ESB vs Oracle Service Bus

Compared 28% of the time

IBM Integration Bus vs Oracle Service Bus

Compared 26% of the time

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator vs Oracle Service Bus

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Fuse vs Oracle Service Bus

Compared 9% of the time

OpenESB vs Oracle Service Bus

Compared 3% of the time

More Oracle Service Bus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Service Bus

September 2025

Download Oracle Service Bus product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

No data available

Overview

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

IBM

Oracle Service Bus transforms complex and brittle architectures into agile integration networks by connecting, virtualizing, and managing interactions between services and applications. Oracle Service Bus delivers low-cost, standards-based integration for mission critical SOA environments where extreme performance, scalability and reliability are critical requirements.

Oracle Service Bus enables companies to use the values of their enterprise applications portfolio. From on-premise, to the cloud to mobile devices, Service Bus allows companies to leverage their existing investments in new ways by extending the performance and scalability leadership of Oracle SOA and API Management.

Oracle

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity

MakeMyTrip Ltd., Griffith University, Colab Consulting Pty. Ltd., Pacfico Seguros Generales, IGEPA IT-SERVICE GmbH, Guangzhou Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, Pacfico Seguros Generales, Bank Audi S.A.L., Rydges Sydney Airport, Intelligent Pathways, Nacional Monte de Piedad IAP

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle Service Bus

September 2025

Free Report: IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle Service Bus

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