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JBoss ESB 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

JBoss ESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
2
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 JBoss ESB is 3.3%, up from 2.1% 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

AU
Efficient orchestration and security features improve business processes effortlessly
JBoss ESB should focus on startup and performance as EAP is heavier than lightweight Java frameworks, which impacts microservices and cloud environments. Improvements should include faster start times and reduced memory footprints. Better cold-start performance in containers should be emphasized. Cloud-native features must be enhanced since many enterprises are shifting to Kubernetes and OpenShift, making EAP more cloud-friendly. This could include providing smaller container images, native auto-scaling support, and improved integration with cloud configuration services. Enhancing the developer experience is crucial; while the current configuration is powerful, it can be complex for newcomers. As an experienced user, I navigate it easily, but newcomers struggle due to heavy reliance on XML configuration. Transitioning to a JSON-based configuration or YAML format would be beneficial, and simplifications in clustering setup for local testing would greatly assist users.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to use. I can download the trial version and just give it a go."
"The solution doesn't require much code writing and we can develop APIs very easily."
"The most powerful feature is DataWeave, which is a powerful language where data can be transformed from one form into another."
"The architecture based on events has several connectors which allow integration from external and internal applications of the company."
"The product offers a community edition that is free of cost."
"The connectivity the solution provides is excellent. There are often too many systems that we have to integrate and this helps with that."
"Mule ESB helps a lot with our microservice architecture that we're trying to build, and it is still our go-to technology when it comes to that, so it's very promising for us."
"For complex cases, we employ the SSLi engine, whereas for simpler ones like healthcare or response data, such as EDI 270 or 271. We prefer to use an external XRT engine instead of handling it within the ESB for ease of management."
"Scalability and load balancing."
 

Cons

"JBoss ESB should focus on startup and performance as EAP is heavier than lightweight Java frameworks, which impacts microservices and cloud environments."
"The EPA, from what I understand, lacks a lot of features and it doesn't really know how to interface with legacy systems or how to develop APIs for legacy systems."
"The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster."
"Community editions need more attention."
"Lacking some connectors that could be included."
"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."
"The stability could be improved."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"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."
"Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is expensive."
"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 licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."
"The pricing must be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Mule ESB is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rancore, Sprint, ResMed, Brazil's Ministry of Health, ING Services Polska
Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Updated: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.