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IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Sterling B2B Integratio...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (6th)
Mule ESB
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is designed for Business-to-Business Middleware and holds a mindshare of 9.0%, down 15.5% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 18.3% mindshare, down 18.7% since last year.
Business-to-Business Middleware Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services9.0%
SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite10.2%
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform8.7%
Other72.1%
Business-to-Business Middleware
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Mule ESB18.3%
IBM Integration Bus16.1%
IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration7.6%
Other57.99999999999999%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

RT
Seeburger Lead EDI Developer/Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Effective business process handling with some room for improvement in mapping ease and user interactions
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services does not have specific issues that need improvement. While each product, like SeeBurger and IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services, has its own advantages and disadvantages, I do not see any challenges or improvements needed. Although, mapping might be a bit easier in SeeBurger compared to IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services.
Srinivas-Kanduri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise integrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Integration architecture has enabled reliable multi-channel messaging and secure API management but now needs better analytics and simpler development
In my opinion, the real-time analytics part of Mule ESB is not up to the mark for the decision-making process. While there are some analytics features, they lack the standards needed for enterprise use. Compared to other analytics tools such as Power BI, MuleSoft falls short.Points for improvement in Mule ESB definitely include enhancing the analytics capabilities because currently, they rely on external logging tools such as Splunk or ELK, which is lagging behind compared to other tools such as Workato that offer more analytical features. Additionally, issues arise with AI-based use cases due to dependencies on Salesforce tools such as agent force, making development more complicated when it should be more independent. Developing AI-based agents without being tied to Salesforce applications could also enhance functionality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, for how we use it and the way our organization is arranged, this solution works very well for us."
"We are able to monitor all B2B messages, and we are able to see or track each message on it from an error perspective. That's a good side of it. It is working well, and we're able to do our current job."
"Being a manufacturing company, we are dealing with different customers and catering to different orders, and EDI is very helpful for us because the ordering can be done via EDI and the orders can be processed outright, which is a big advantage."
"If you're in retail domain and are dealing with customers, then this is a good solution for you."
"They have best-in-class, quality support."
"The B2B Sterling platform is basically managed services, so we outsource our services to IBM and it relieves us of having resources in-house and 24/7 support."
"This product is fairly out there in terms of usability and easy to use, such as you can implement and deploy."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"Go for it, but first read their sample exercises."
"The most powerful feature is DataWeave, which is a powerful language where data can be transformed from one form into another."
"The setup is straightforward."
"Mule ESB is the heart of applications that require routing and improvement of messages such as electronic invoicing."
"The most valuable feature is DataWeave; it allows for the transformation of data, for example to JSON or from JSON, and it's very powerful."
"The connectivity the solution provides is excellent, as we often have too many systems that we need to integrate and this platform helps significantly with that."
"Writing your complex business logic as a simple workflow which can be understood by not so technical people, with hot deployment and a variety of free connectors, makes Mule ESB a powerful and accessible integration solution."
"Mule ESB has a user-friendly design, and everything is in one place. The API and architecture are popular right now. Also, MuleSoft has a large and supportive online community."
 

Cons

"Onboarding on the solution is complex."
"The setup is not straightforward, but it is fairly well documented."
"Onboarding on the solution is complex. It's hard to onboard partners and customer suppliers. It's one aspect that is not that straightforward."
"It can be now classified as a legacy system because there are no more updates. From what I know, there will be no updates for the current version, which is an issue."
"They can improve APIs because they are still lagging behind in API connectivity. With non-API connectivity, they're market leaders, but API connectivity, they're still in the immature space."
"It's probably not as much as they sold us in their value proposition, so be cautious about that."
"The only weaknesses they have different governance for each task and different channels for communication which are hard to maintain. The relation of the company with other companies can be improved. We have a lot of customers who this platform for the interchange of information which can also be improved. The compliance information about banks can also be updated."
"It can be now classified as a legacy system because there are no more updates. From what I know, there will be no updates for the current version, which is an issue. Therefore, we are looking for a compatible new software that we can use. We're currently researching what is there in the market. We would consider something that would give us better speed on our current processor. There is also room for improvement in terms of its scalability and GUI. It is an old system, and its scalability can be improved. Its GUI can also be more appealing."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"In an upcoming release, I would like to see more additional concept for exception handling, batch processing, and increased integration with other application."
"It would be beneficial if users could navigate the UI easily without extensive training or learning curves."
"This solution could be improved by making it more flexible, and more user-friendly."
"The Mule IDE (Integrated Development Environment) could be more stable."
"Licensing cost could be improved in this regard. Overall, the product is a bit on the expensive side."
"In order to meet the new trend of active metadata management, we need intelligent APIs that can retrieve new data designs and trigger actions over new findings without human intervention."
"It should have some amount of logging."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a good pricing system, in relation to powerful features."
"The tool is expensive because of its rich features."
"Pricing is a little bit on the higher side because they give you the best support. Out of ten, I would rate pricing at seven or eight."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
"You will not get any support from Mule ESB's team for the tool's community edition...You can get support with the licensed version of Mule ESB."
"Mule ESB is a costly solution. We pay approximately $80,000 annually for the system. The cost of the number of instances, annual subscription, and cloud hosting services are expensive."
"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."
"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."
"Regarding licensing and pricing, I find it somewhat flexible. They are more flexible with larger customers compared to small and medium ones, as their licensing model depends on ports and other factors. Large customers benefit from more flexibility in implementation and renewal compared to smaller ones."
"I think the price is very high. If you use TIBCO BW, the license is for the CPU usage, then the IPS, and support. I also think the license for the product is a one-time expense."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Media Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?
IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services does not have specific issues that need improvement. While each product, like SeeBurger and IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services, has its own advantages and d...
What is your primary use case for IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?
My primary use case is using IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services ( /products/ibm-sterling-b2b-integration-services-reviews ) for business process modeling and mapping tasks. These tasks are simil...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?
I would rate IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services a seven. The main reason for this rating is that SeeBurger is much easier to handle compared to IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services. Features li...
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 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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Informatica, Seeburger and others in Business-to-Business Middleware. Updated: July 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.