Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Oracle SOA Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 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 Application Infrastructure
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
Oracle SOA Suite
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.6%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SOA Suite is 3.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

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.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"The solution is robust."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy."
"The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature."
"The product provides transparency in finances."
"The integration with various products."
"What I like best about Oracle SOA Suite is Oracle support. I also like the tool features, especially the integration feature."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle SOA Suite is all the platform's capabilities."
 

Cons

"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"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."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"Making it more user-friendly would be an improvement."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"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 solutions can improve the communication or translations between formats, such as JSON and XML. The JSON REST API could improve."
"The deployment could be made easier by including add-ons like Hudson and Maven."
"SOA"
"It's also not developer-friendly."
"An area for improvement in Oracle SOA Suite is the cost. It could be lower."
"If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit."
"I would like to see divided containers more separately as a microservice."
"One area that could be better is the human task feature. It could be improved to provide more functionality and customization options because it has limited options available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"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 product is expensive."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"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."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
"The product is moderately priced."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
8%
Manufacturing 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...
What do you like most about Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
SOA Suite
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Oracle SOA Suite and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.