IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs Red Hat Fuse comparison

IBM and Red Hat are both solutions in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 4.0% mindshare in E, compared to Red Hat’s 7.0% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

891 Views
668 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Red Hat Fuse

Read 24 Red Hat Fuse reviews

1,471 Views
1,442 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Red Hat Fuse

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and Red Hat Fuse compete in integration software. IBM WebSphere Message Broker holds an advantage in complex enterprise-level integrations, while Red Hat Fuse offers open-source flexibility and cost-efficiency.

Features: IBM WebSphere Message Broker supports a wide range of protocols and has advanced transformation capabilities, making it ideal for complex enterprise environments. Red Hat Fuse integrates seamlessly with Java, supports microservices architecture, and offers strong containerization features.

Room for Improvement: IBM WebSphere Message Broker could simplify its setup process and reduce the need for expert handling. It might also benefit from more intuitive interfaces and enhanced documentation for users. Red Hat Fuse can improve its customer support, optimize performance for high-demand operations, and enhance its user-friendly documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM WebSphere Message Broker's comprehensive capabilities come with a more complex setup that may require expert intervention. In contrast, Red Hat Fuse provides a simpler deployment experience and a lean learning curve, backed by developer-friendly interfaces. IBM offers extensive customer support, while Red Hat leverages community support with professional services available for subscribers.

Pricing and ROI: IBM WebSphere Message Broker has higher initial setup costs but delivers a robust ROI for large-scale enterprise operations through reliability and performance. Red Hat Fuse presents a cost-effective alternative, with lower setup costs and attractive ROI due to its open-source nature and reduced total cost of ownership.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Red Hat Fuse Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Red Hat Fuse

September 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)

9th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (17th)

Red Hat Fuse

Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 4.0%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Fuse is 7.0%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Fuse	7.0%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	4.0%
Other	89.0%

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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Kaushal Kedia

Technical Architect at Accenture

Offers a single console for all applications and supports Camel routing

Containerization is one key area where the product can improve, but it probably has already improved in JBOS integration. On a few occasions, our company's production team faced an issue with Red Hat Fuse; the screen displayed that the containers had gone down while, in reality, they were running in the background. The user interface and the back-end code were not in sync in the aforementioned situation, which our organization frequently faced while using Red Hat Fuse. But at our company, we were using an older version of Red Hat Fuse in which we faced the issues. From the JBOS end, the product was very frequently changed from Red Hat, and it was difficult for our clients to keep investing money in every upgrade. Six or seven years back, Red Hat Fuse was one of the best solutions.

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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

"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."

"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."

"The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable."

"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."

"It's reliable for our day-to-day operations, ensuring fast and secure data integration across different systems."

"The solution has good integration."

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"The most valuable feature is that it's the same as Apache Camel."

"It's very lightweight. There's no need for any specialized tools in order to deploy any service for Red Hat Fuse."

"The most valuable part of Fuse is the fact that it's based on Red Hat Apache Camel. It is really good that it already comes with so many different connectors. That makes it relatively easy to use. We use their XML definition to define the routes, making it really easy to define the routing."

"Red Hat Fuse's best features are that it's very easy to set up and maintain."

"We use it because it is easy to integrate with any other application...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution nine out of ten."

"The installation is quite okay. We don't really change much in the configuration. Most of the time, most of the settings remain with the default and we are able to handle our needs using the default setting."

"This solution's adaptability to our use case has helped us integrate our systems seamlessly."

"The process workflow, where we can orchestrate and design the application by defining different routes, is really useful."

More Red Hat Fuse pros

Cons

"It is currently a weighty product."

"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."

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

"The installation configuration is quite difficult."

"There is some lag in the GUI. There have been some performance issues and maybe it's because of the application data."

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

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

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

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"The main issue with Red Hat Fuse is the outdated and scattered documentation."

"The web tools need to be updated."

"As its learning curve is quite steep, developer dependency will always be there in the case of a Red Hat Fuse development. This should be improved for developers. There should be some built-in connectors so the grind of the developer can be reduced."

"The solution will be discontinued in 2024."

"For improvement, they can consider the way we collaborate with other applications...Right now, in Red Hat Fuse, everything is not available under one umbrella."

"What needs to be improved in Red Hat Fuse is on the development side because when you use it for development purposes, it lacks a user interface compared to what MuleSoft has, so it's a bit difficult for users."

"While it's a good platform, the pricing is a bit high."

"My company doesn't have any experience with other messaging tools, so it's difficult to mention what areas could be improved in Red Hat Fuse, but it could be pricing because I find it expensive."

More Red Hat Fuse 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."

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

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

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

"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 solution is expensive."

"We are paying around $24 million across five years."

"Red Hat Fuse is an expensive tool, though I cannot answer how much it costs as that's confidential."

"We use the standard license, but you need the container platform in order to run it."

"The solution doesn't have independent licensing."

"In terms of pricing, Red Hat Fuse is a bit expensive because nowadays, if I'm just comparing it with OpenShift with Kubernetes, so Kubernetes and OpenShift, are similar, and Kubernetes is open source, so Red Hat Fuse is quite expensive in terms of support, but Red Hat Fuse provides value for money because it provides good support. If you want to get something, you need to pay for it."

"You need to pay for the license. It's not free."

"My company pays for the license of Red Hat Fuse yearly. At the end of the day, it's a low-cost solution, and its support licenses are still very decently priced versus bigger operators such as IBM, etc. Red Hat Fuse is much more affordable than other solutions. On a scale of one to five, with one being cheap and five being extremely expensive, I'm rating its pricing a one."

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

More Red Hat Fuse pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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

What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Fuse?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Fuse?

Our company used Red Hat Fuse to integrate layers of numerous applications. The solution has also been used in our organization for orchestration purposes of multiple microservices over the years. ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Fuse?

I would rate Red Hat Fuse as eight out of ten. When the solution was being used in our organization, the JBoss or Red Hat support was great. The solution was highly stable, robust, and scalable, an...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 43% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 10% of the time

Mule ESB vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 9% of the time

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 8% of the time

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IBM Integration Bus vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 29% of the time

Mule ESB vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 17% of the time

JBoss ESB vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Service Bus vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 13% of the time

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator vs Red Hat Fuse

Compared 11% of the time

More Red Hat Fuse Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

September 2025

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Fuse

September 2025

Download Red Hat Fuse product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

Fuse ESB, FuseSource

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

Red Hat JBoss Fuse is a lightweight, flexible integration platform that enables rapid integration across the extended enterprise - on-premise or in the cloud. JBoss Fuse includes modular integration capabilities, an enterprise service bus (ESB), to unlock information.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

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

Avianca, American Product Distributors (APD), Kings College Hospital, AMD, CenturyLink, AECOM, E*TRADE

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Red Hat Fuse

September 2025

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. Red Hat Fuse

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