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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Perforce Acana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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 API Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (4th), Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
Perforce Acana
Ranking in API Management
33rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.3%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Acana is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway3.3%
Perforce Acana1.0%
Other95.7%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Saurav Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineering and AI Intern at .3Lines Venture Capital
Authentication mechanism is easy to implement but improvement is needed in documentation
For API security purposes, we use the tool to host all our APIs. This allows us to take advantage of the security features provided by the platform. With the solution, we can implement rules such as rate limiting and restricting the number of API calls for each user. It acts as a secure gateway…

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 scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."
"The solution's technical support is excellent."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"IBM is a huge organization in comparison to most of the competition, it has massive development and offers very high-quality 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:"
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Good interface, intuitive solution."
"The tool's authentication mechanism is easy to implement. We had to define a few parameters."
"The interface is good, and the policies that it uses as opposed to the features that it has in terms of security and the throughput management and those aspects are intuitive."
"It allowed us to publish and replace pre-essential transactions in one place, with a uniformity in terms of control and policies."
"Its completeness feature for the large enterprises, in my case for the government, is the most valuable feature of this product."
 

Cons

"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"This solution is not scalable for our environment."
"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"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."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive, especially in the development test and UAT environment, where we can use the virtual version of the product."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"The version that we have is very old."
"Akana API Management needs to improve its documentation."
"We actually did reach out to the technical support and it was all right, not great. We didn't get the answers we needed."
"Lacks an integrated billing feature."
"The product has new features that we are going to implement in the next few months, such as API management and analytic reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"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."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"For us, the pricing and licensing policies were for an on-premise installation with a fixed cost structure, that matched our budgeting policies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I don't know if the current licensing cost of IBM DataPower Gateway is high, but I think it's acceptable. I don't have any complaints about it.
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
I noticed that the Gateway Script libraries could be improved, as they are not covering everything I need.
What is your primary use case for IBM DataPower Gateway?
The primary purposes for which IBM DataPower Gateway is used include security purposes, and sometimes you need to put some configurations and mapping into the process.
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Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
British American Tobacco, Credit Suisse, Daimler, eBay, FOX, Liberty Mutual, Marriott, Mayo Clinic, Skandia, Tata communications
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Perforce Acana and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.