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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle Service 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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (9th), 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
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.9%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Service Bus is 11.1%, up from 11.0% 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.
Awa Sri - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers valuable features of API management and protocol definition
The initial setup process of Oracle Service Bus is quite easy. The installation of the product can be completed in one or two hours, but the total deployment time varies from case to case. I believe the entire deployment of Oracle Service Bus can be finished within a day. One engineer is enough to deploy the solution. The solution can be easily maintained.

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 very easy to work with."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"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."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"We've been pleased with the level of technical support."
"The most valuable feature is the adapters."
"The main advantage of Oracle Service Bus is the possibility to integrate different systems using workflows and different architectures in the same product."
"Its ease of use is valuable. It's very easy to use. It's no code/low code. Oracle Middleware products are also rich in adapters."
"Overall it is a pretty good solution."
"It is stable."
"It was very good at supporting high transactions, up to 300 transactions per second."
"Supports multiple protocol technologies and web services."
 

Cons

"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"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 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."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"The error-handling capability can be improved"
"An area for improvement in Oracle Service Bus is the roadmap for its product launch. Currently, it's unclear, so Oracle should develop a roadmap for version 12c, so people can see what's coming out of that version of Oracle Service Bus. Cloud hosting is an additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Oracle Service Bus."
"While I have not used the latest versions, resource efficiency could be optimized, considering past experiences"
"The pricing of the product could be better. It's a bit high."
"The inconvenient part about working with this product is that it's very heavy, requiring a lot of people and a lot of resources."
"It's very complex and hard to learn. There's a steep learning curve."
"The initial setup is likely complex for many organizations."
"It would be ideal if they could optimize it a bit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"Oracle Service Bus is a bit expensive"
"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."
"I'm not aware of how much Oracle Service Bus costs."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"The price of this solution is better than the subscription-based Mule ESB."
"We have an unlimited yearly license."
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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
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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...
What do you like most about Oracle Service Bus?
The stability is consistently high, with only one notable issue encountered.
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
MakeMyTrip Ltd., Griffith University, Colab Consulting Pty. Ltd., Pacfico Seguros Generales, IGEPA IT-SERVICE GmbH, Guangzhou Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, Pacfico Seguros Generales, Bank Audi S.A.L., Rydges Sydney Airport, Intelligent Pathways, Nacional Monte de Piedad IAP
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle Service Bus and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.