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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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
WSO2 Enterprise Integrator
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 5.9%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 Enterprise Integrator is 5.4%, up from 5.3% 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

"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 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 scalability of the solution is good."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"The solution basically conforms to our standards."
"The solution's technical support is very knowledgeable."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"It's a consolidated product. It works and it does its job pretty well."
"The learning curve for this solution is very good."
"The drag-and-drop features for connectors are very valuable."
"The solution has two main parts: integration and transformation. It's very user-friendly and easy to understand for everyone."
"The stability is excellent."
 

Cons

"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"Its support services could be better."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"It is a costly product."
"Scripting needs improvement. It's hard for our customers."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"One of the reasons that we are looking for a replacement is their way of defining integration. The language of the XML structures that I use to describe the integrations are not that standard, and it's not easy to find people who are familiar with this approach."
"I would like to see better documentation for the open-source version."
"They should release upgrades more frequently."
"The setup can be difficult for those not familiar with the solution."
"I would like to see them bring back a feature, from earlier versions, that was very useful in debugging and finding issues."
"WSO2 libraries are not mature enough. For example, if you want to integrate with Kafka using its Kafka library, it often has many bugs."
"In my opinion, the administration model and interface, of Carbon, are lacking in terms of its features and user experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
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?
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 e...
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.