IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs Mule ESB comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 3.9% mindshare in E, compared to Salesforce’s 20.4% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

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84% willing to recommend

Mule ESB

Read 50 Mule ESB reviews

3,686 Views
3,082 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Mule ESB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and Mule ESB are both formidable players in the integration platform space, catering to enterprise-level needs. IBM WebSphere Message Broker stands out due to its robust enterprise features, making it ideal for enterprises needing structured processes. Mule ESB, with its agile development environment and open-source adaptability, offers a quicker deployment, advantageous for rapid cloud-based integration.

Features: IBM WebSphere Message Broker provides advanced message routing, sophisticated data transformation, and a range of enterprise protocol support. Mule ESB is valued for its lightweight integration, ease of use, and high scalability, fitting for both cloud and on-premises deployments.

Room for Improvement: IBM WebSphere Message Broker can benefit from enhanced support for modern agile practices and more simplified deployment options. Mule ESB may improve by optimizing the user interface for better complex project management, expanding enterprise-grade feature sets, and offering deeper integration with legacy systems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM WebSphere Message Broker offers a more thorough and structured deployment model, backed by a robust customer service network suitable for large enterprises. In contrast, Mule ESB showcases a simpler, faster deployment process with strong community support, making it a go-to for agile environments.

Pricing and ROI: IBM WebSphere Message Broker presents a higher initial setup cost, justifiable by its comprehensive enterprise features, contributing to significant ROI over time. Mule ESB appeals to organizations seeking a cost-effective solution with lower initial setup costs, achieving quick ROI via agile iterative development.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

April 2025

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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 WebSphere Message Broker

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (16th)

Mule ESB

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 3.9%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mule ESB is 20.4%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

Featured Reviews

BrajendraKumar

Technical Architect at HCL Technologies

Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability

I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

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PurbayanSaha

Technology Consultant at Ernst & Young

Has API-led architecture and provides a unique, user-friendly, and scalable architecture for hosting APIs

There's room for improvement in multi-file transfer functionality. It's not convenient when using MuleSoft, and it should have better capability for handling large amounts of data. For example, applications like GoAnywhere can handle huge chunks of data, so the tool should also have something to facilitate that aspect of integration.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integration and mapping are easy, which is a major advantage."

"The most valuable feature of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is the ability to facilitate communication with legacy systems, offering a multitude of great capabilities. For example, if there is a mainframe system in place with a web service serving as the front end. In that case, the solution enables efficient protocol transformations to convert all request payloads into a format that the legacy systems can accept, rendering the integration and transformation processes seamless and highly effective."

"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."

"It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy."

"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."

"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."

"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"

"We only use the basic features, but the most valuable one for us is the Publish-subscribe pattern."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"The solution offers multiple deployment options."

"Everything runs in Java, which is a useful feature."

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

"Easy connectivity and easy integration."

"The most powerful feature is DataWeave, which is a powerful language where data can be transformed from one form into another."

"Mule Expression Language"

"The product is very stable."

"The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily."

More Mule ESB pros

Cons

"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"The product's features are not being upgraded or enhanced by the vendor"

"The solution can add container engines such as docker."

"As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordingly."

"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."

"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."

"It is currently a weighty product."

"Technical support is very slow and needs to be improved."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"From an improvement perspective, there should be fewer coding challenges for users in Mule ESB."

"It should have some amount of logging."

"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."

"The price of Mule ESB could improve."

"Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."

"From the product perspective, it was sometimes hard to manage the dependencies. When we had to add dependencies on a couple of different packages, it was sometimes confusing. It was hard to update them with Anypoint Studio, as well as with MuleSoft. There were challenges with that. So, that's one of the areas that could be improved."

"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."

"It would be much more beneficial if the solution included AI and business process management."

More Mule ESB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."

"This product is more expensive than competing products."

"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."

"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"

"The solution is expensive."

"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."

"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."

"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."

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

"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."

"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."

"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."

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

"The pricing must be improved."

More Mule ESB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...

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

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Compared 48% of the time

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Compared 20% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 12% of the time

IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 28% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Mule ESB

Compared 13% of the time

IBM B2B Integrator vs Mule ESB

Compared 8% of the time

webMethods.io vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services vs Mule ESB

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

May 2025

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

Mule ESB

May 2025

Download Mule ESB product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

No data available

Overview

WebSphere Message Broker is an enterprise service bus (ESB) providing connectivity and universal data transformation for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and non-SOA environments. It allows businesses of any size to eliminate point-to-point connections and batch processing regardless of platform, protocol or data format.

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

WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

April 2025

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Mule ESB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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