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IBM DataPower Gateway vs SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal 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
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Po...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.1%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM DataPower Gateway4.1%
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal1.4%
Other94.5%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
The UI makes the setup easy to do from anywhere
Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations. SAP needs to come up with a standardized version of NetWeaver. The solution is good on the internal side, but not so much from the client perspective when they view it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"It is easy to use, easy to install, and it's resilient for high availability."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"The solution is robust."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"From the use of this solution, we have been able to establish better processes and have greater management of our company."
"Internal workflow approval around ESS and MSS leave days, capex approval as well as internal communication to the business have improved the way my organization functions."
"They integrated it with the SAP router."
"Workflow functionality and internal portal capabilities are the most important features."
 

Cons

"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"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."
"From the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT language. It does not support multiple languages."
"Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations."
"External portal functionality with suppliers and customers needs improvement."
"The user interface could be improved by making it more user-friendly."
"We encountered stability issues, especially on external functionality around its RFP capabilities."
"Due to our business, some setups were very complex."
 

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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"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 solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The product is expensive."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"​SAP is not for every business. It depends on what is required. SAP is always going to be expensive​."
"Because India is so competitive in the IT world, people will start to move away from SAP's pricing because they have a market monopoly. Soon, they will start losing the monopoly part to open source and other things. I don't think their monopoly will run for more than three to four years because people are getting away from these monopolies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

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?
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...
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...
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Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
NetWeaver Enterprise Portal, SAP Portal
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Alliander N.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.