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IBM DataPower Gateway vs SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal [EOL] comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 15, 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
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), API Management (16th)
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Po...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
reviewer1582677 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO / Executive Director for Information Technology at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improves business processes, highly stable, and reliable
We are in Serbia and we are providing data center services for other countries, such as Montenegro, Bosnia, and Hercegovina. We are using this solution as an ERP at the moment. This covers all of our business processes, this includes sales, distribution, data management, finance, and compliance…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"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 for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"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."
"The solution's technical support is excellent."
"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"Workflow functionality and internal portal capabilities are the most important features."
"The technical support is good."
"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."
"From the use of this solution, we have been able to establish better processes and have greater management of our company."
"They integrated it with the SAP router."
 

Cons

"The customization of the solution isn't as straightforward as we would like it to be."
"It is a costly product."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations."
"It is challenging to understand the solution's design and support skills."
"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."
"Its support services could be better."
"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"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."
"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."
"We encountered stability issues, especially on external functionality around its RFP capabilities."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"External portal functionality with suppliers and customers needs improvement."
"Due to our business, some setups were very complex."
"The user interface could be improved by making it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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 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."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"​SAP is not for every business. It depends on what is required. SAP is always going to be expensive​."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"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
23%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
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
NetWeaver Enterprise Portal, SAP Portal
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Alliander N.V.
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