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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Perforce Acana comparison

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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
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
Perforce Acana
Ranking in API Management
34th
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 September 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perforce Acana is 1.1%, 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 Gateway3.8%
Perforce Acana1.1%
Other95.1%
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 support for IBM DataPower Gateway has been exceptional."
"IBM is a huge organization in comparison to most of the competition, it has massive development and offers very high-quality products."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the appliance hardware, the software embedded within the hardware appliance machine, making it one of the best security platforms in the market that is easy to use, easy to install, and resilient for high availability."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"Anybody can use it as their security device and as their multi-protocol handling device."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"If you are an enterprise customer, I would definitely advise that it is better to go for IBM DataPower, because you won't need to have a proxy or any other security measures required in the DMC, and it is easy to implement and easy to maintain and scale."
"The tool's authentication mechanism is easy to implement. We had to define a few parameters."
"It allowed us to publish and replace pre-essential transactions in one place, with a uniformity in terms of control and policies."
"Good interface, intuitive solution."
"Its completeness feature for the large enterprises, in my case for the government, is the most valuable feature of this product."
"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."
 

Cons

"From the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT language. It does not support multiple languages."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations."
"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."
"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."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"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."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."
"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."
"The product has new features that we are going to implement in the next few months, such as API management and analytic reporting."
"Lacks an integrated billing feature."
"The version that we have is very old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The product is 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 tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"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
23%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.