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IBM DataPower Gateway vs WSO2 Enterprise Integrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 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 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd), API Management (12th)
WSO2 Enterprise Integrator
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 6.0%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.4%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Decreases the development timeframe and costs
The main issue with the product is pricing. It uses core-based pricing for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and API Manager. It would be best if you had APIM by default. It provides many connectors for easy integration with third-party systems. Often, customers decide to develop using open-source tools like Spring Boot if there aren't many connectors required to avoid increasing costs. They'll develop this way and then deploy using APIM, the bare minimum needed. It is mainly required for very complicated setups with many connectors. In the implementations I've seen, people often used open-source tools because there weren't many third-party systems involved—just their organization's own systems. From WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, I expect them to bring up more and more connectors in the future. That's the main expectation. Having more connectors in various areas will help us when discussing new requirements. I don't have any specific use case right now, so I can't name a particular connector. But, as new technologies emerge, the relevant connectors should be there for those. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator mainly helps with the integration part, which can be simplified only if you have relevant connectors for whatever you're doing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The solution is stable."
"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:"
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"It's a consolidated product. It works and it does its job pretty well."
"The solution's technical support is very knowledgeable."
"Currently, I find the configuration part quite valuable, where you can easily configure things."
"The solution basically conforms to our standards."
"The customer service executives are very responsive."
"The solution has two main parts: integration and transformation. It's very user-friendly and easy to understand for everyone."
"WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide."
"The installation process is easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"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."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"One area that could be improved is the integration with Postgres and SQL databases. Currently, IBM DataPower Gateway only integrates with Oracle databases."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to see them bring back a feature, from earlier versions, that was very useful in debugging and finding issues."
"There are a lot of security settings that when you apply you have to re-apply again every time you modify a setting. It is something that really needs to be enhanced."
"WSO2 libraries are not mature enough. For example, if you want to integrate with Kafka using its Kafka library, it often has many bugs."
"You cannot include the validation of XPath."
"The customization can be a bit difficult."
"They should introduce better pricing for small companies."
"If I have to buy software, then it becomes expensive for me."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too 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 appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"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."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The pricing of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator for enterprise subscriptions can be considered expensive, especially from the perspective of someone who prefers open-source software."
"It is a low-cost solution."
"The cost is better than IBM Cloud Pak."
"The open-source, unsupported version is available free of charge."
"The solution costs about 20,000 or 30,000 euros per year, per instance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance 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 WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
WSO2's analytics capability is good, considering the ELC support they provide.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
The product has reasonable and competitive pricing for enterprise customers. It is expensive for small businesses especially. They are using the open-source solution, and they find it expensive sin...
What needs improvement with WSO2 Enterprise Integrator?
Something that could be improved in WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is that the problem is not a lack of capability or functionalities. The problem is that it is a very complex environment. To put your ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
West
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.