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IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
IBM Integration Bus offers varied ROI, aiding digital transformation, with long-term benefits and cost reductions from efficient integrations.
Sentiment score
5.6
Calculating ROI from Mule ESB varies, influenced by design strategies, licensing costs, and varying perceptions of its value.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
IBM Integration Bus customer service is rated high for expertise, though some users cite delays and high costs.
Sentiment score
6.6
Mule ESB support varies by subscription, offering quick responses but sometimes lacks depth; forums provide additional insights.
I would rate the technical support of IBM Integration Bus as nine out of ten; it was the best.
We have a good relationship with our vendor, and they are ready to help us with any technical issues.
The technical support of Mule ESB can be rated from nine to ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
IBM Integration Bus excels in scalability, supporting diverse configurations and high performance, ideal for enterprise deployment with minor version limitations.
Sentiment score
7.5
Mule ESB scales efficiently for diverse enterprises, supporting seamless cloud deployments and handling extensive data through flexible integration.
Mule ESB is a scalable solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
IBM Integration Bus is praised for its exceptional stability and reliability, crucial for handling extensive infrastructure integration smoothly.
Sentiment score
7.1
Mule ESB is stable and reliable, despite minor issues with older versions, large files, and clustering.
In my experience, it is a scalable solution, and IBM Integration Bus is indeed a stable product.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Integration Bus needs enhancements in functionality, support, cost, interface, architecture, and integration with cloud and DevOps.
Mule ESB users report challenges with documentation, stability, performance, licensing costs, support, and integration, requiring significant improvements.
They are improving one of the nodes such as the HTTP request node, implementing the indirect retry mechanism itself, and we are getting new features.
More information is needed from MuleSoft.
From my perspective, Mule ESB is lightweight, but it can be improved when it comes to the agility of the system.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Integration Bus is costly for small firms but reasonable for large enterprises, with concerns over licensing complexity.
Mule ESB is seen as expensive with flexible pricing and offers support only in the paid Enterprise version.
Regarding the pricing setup cost and licensing for IBM Integration Bus, I believe it is expensive.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Integration Bus excels with protocol support, scalability, and security, offering seamless system integration and intuitive GUI for enterprises.
Mule ESB provides flexible, high-performance integration with extensive connectivity, DataWeave, API-led architecture, cloud capabilities, and strong support.
The features I find most valuable in IBM Integration Bus are very useful for performing transformations from systems such as SAP to Salesforce, and from Salesforce to S/4 and 365.
They have their own language called DataWeave, which helps transform data and is efficient enough to handle any kind of transformation.
The best features of Mule ESB are that it's very robust and solid; I find that even our legacy systems go well with ESB.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Integration Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Mule ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM Integration Bus is 21.9%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 18.7%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashraf Siddiqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for complex integrations because it has tools and functionality to integrate with other systems
Everything needs to be improved. As far as integration and the cloud are concerned, things are moving to the cloud side. When you use Kubernetes and similar technologies, IBM Integration Bus doesn't greatly facilitate these environments. Maybe I don't know enough about that, but I feel that when it comes to the DevOps environment, the tool needs to be deployed on production in a way that's just like pods. Cloud integration needs to be more facilitated with the DevOps environment. This IBM technology needs to adapt because in the recent world, in the real world, we see that everything is just a cloud pod. Whenever you need to scale anything, you just put some cloud and pod and improve it, make any server and deploy it. But in IBM Integration Bus, there is a problem because we can't do this as easily. In short, IBM needs to more emphasize or more integrate with the cloud environments as well, similar to DevOps. There are limitations in IBM Integration Bus when it comes to DevOps.
Maharsh-Kapadia - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms enterprise integration with comprehensive platform and excellent support
The best features of this solution are that everything we get into a single platform, whether it's integration, API, or data modeling; everything is available in one platform. It's a hybrid, including cloud and on-premise solutions with good connectivity and good connectors. From the benefits of using Mule ESB, we could reduce the manual tasks to 50% in one to two years. The cost is still something we are trying to make lower because we see some advantages when we move from point-to-point integration to API-led connectivity. We have seen a lot of reusable assets, so the cost is reduced. Ultimately, we want to see how it's transformed into business revenue; that's what we are still looking into.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about IBM Integration Bus?
The message queue, like, message queue connectors. Then they have a built in connectors for most of the systems, like SAP, oracle database, and this Civil connector is there. Of course, we have thi...
What do you like most about Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mule ESB?
In terms of costing, I consider it 50-50; I would not say it's 100% cost-effective because the platform itself is a little costly. We are trying to improve how efficiently we make our ecosystem. It...
What needs improvement with Mule ESB?
They come up with new versions frequently, but at a COE level, it's difficult to upgrade to new features because it's not easy to upgrade. We have to spend some extra manual efforts to upgrade that...
 

Also Known As

IBM WebSphere ESB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesbox, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Road Buddy, Swiss Federal Railways, Electricity Supply Board, The Hartree Centre, ESB Networks
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.