IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB comparison

The compared IBM and Salesforce solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #4 in BBM , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 15.7% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #2 in E , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 18.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...

Read 9 IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services reviews

1,654 Views
1,274 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 52 Mule ESB reviews

4,192 Views
3,102 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM Sterling B2B Integratio...

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services and Mule ESB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, SAP, IBM and others in Business-to-Business Middleware.

To learn more, read our detailed Business-to-Business Middleware Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,295 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Business-to-Business Middleware (4th)

Mule ESB

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)

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 15.7%, up 13.1% compared to last year.
Mule ESB, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), holds 18.7% mindshare, down 22.6% since last year.

Business-to-Business Middleware

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

Joshua Rule

Senior Integration Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Comes with real-time integration suite and best security

We use the product in an integrated environment where the client needs a variety of different file transfer protocols as well as an integrated file translation service IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services offers the best security. The product's most valuable feature is the real-time…

Read full review

Maharsh-Kapadia

Enterprise Integration Architect at Tata Consultancy

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have best-in-class, quality support."

"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."

"IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is a stable and scalable product."

"The solution is extremely scalable."

"They have multiple features for each kind of task and issue. The company has different channels to give information to the administration. Security and integration capabilities are also important. This product has helped to replace a lot of other solutions, saving time and cost."

"The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite."

"It is one of the best integration tools in the market."

"The connectivity the solution provides is excellent. There are often too many systems that we have to integrate and this helps with that."

"The most valuable feature is the Salesforce integration."

"The most valuable feature is that it's programmer-friendly, so it's very easy to develop APIs."

"I'm not using ESB directly. It is the integration layer, so it's running under the hood. However, the conversion and transformation performance is excellent. Anypoint Enterprise Security is also solid."

"This tool has exceptional API management and integration connectors in addition to multiple out of the box connectors."

"It is easily deployable and manageable. It has microservices-based architecture, which means that you can deploy the solution based on your needs, and you can manage the solution very easily."

"I am impressed with the product's connectors and scalability."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"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."

"Onboarding on the solution is complex. It's hard to onboard partners and customer suppliers. It's one aspect that is not that straightforward."

"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."

"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."

"In an upcoming release, I would like to see more additional concept for exception handling, batch processing, and increased integration with other application."

"MuleSoft is not so strong in method-based integration, so they're not so functional in that regard."

"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."

"In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the generator for the DataWeave language so that it's a little more graphic."

"Mule ESB could be more user-friendly. I think users must learn about the architecture before they start coding. The price could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an EDIFACT integration."

"The initial setup could be more straightforward."

"It needs more samples. Also, the dependency on Maven should be removed."

"Mule ESB is more into the latest REST APIs, not much into the SOAP web services. Developing is all about web services and not easy with Mule."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"They have a good pricing system, in relation to powerful features."

"The tool is expensive because of its rich features."

"Most of the challenges that I had with this solution were for smaller customers. There is not a good licensing model or pricing model. It is more expensive than other solutions, and that's the downside of MuleSoft. I had to be creative to be able to sell it to the business, but we did. This is something they have to work on because for large companies, it's affordable, but for small and medium businesses, it's very hard to sell."

"The pricing must be improved."

"The various features and components for this solution are no longer free."

"This product is cheaper than some offered by other vendors, although there is a problem because you have to pay for some third-party adapters."

"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."

"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business-to-Business Middleware solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Media Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

The product's most valuable feature is the real-time integration suite.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services?

The tool is expensive because of its rich features.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Mule ESB?

The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.

See all answers

Comparisons

webMethods.io vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 22% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 16% of the time

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Trading Grid vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Process Orchestration vs IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services Competitors

IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 12% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 9% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Mule ESB

Compared 6% of the time

More Mule ESB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services

August 2025

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services report

Download IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

August 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Overview

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services are designed to alleviate the burden on internal resources by providing secure connectivity and collaboration with your customers, suppliers, and business partners. The solution is built on the cloud-based B2B integration and visibility capabilities of IBM Sterling B2B Collaboration Network and provides comprehensive service offerings for partner onboarding, B2B process management, and trading partner support.

Facilitate growth by rapidly growing and adapting your B2B community without burdening internal resources and capital
Reduce B2B total cost of ownership by reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of B2B operations

Accelerate B2B collaboration with global customers and suppliers by leveraging our B2B expertise.

IBM

For companies looking to modernize and unlock the value of existing on-premises systems and applications, an enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture serves as a critical foundation layer for SOA. When deployed as an ESB, the Mule runtime engine of Anypoint Platform combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to the other capabilities of Anypoint Platform and the full power of API-led connectivity.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot

Buyer's Guide

Business-to-Business Middleware

July 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, SAP, IBM and others in Business-to-Business Middleware. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Business-to-Business Middleware reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.