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Mule ESB vs Oracle SOA Suite 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

Mule ESB
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)
Oracle SOA Suite
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (11th), SOA Governance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. Mule ESB is designed for Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and holds a mindshare of 18.7%, down 22.6% compared to last year.
Oracle SOA Suite, on the other hand, focuses on Application Infrastructure, holds 3.8% mindshare, down 4.3% since last year.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

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 is that it's programmer-friendly, so it's very easy to develop APIs."
"We can use Java expressions anywhere in the flow."
"It is one of the best integration tools in the market."
"Scalability and load balancing."
"It's open source, and there are a lot of community resources. Mule ESB makes it easy to connect to other software applications."
"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 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."
"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."
"Conceptually, how it integrates a lot of essential enterprise process components. That's the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of the facility, as the partner link, is to try to use third-party services and logic in your own vehicle to orchestrate the information."
"The most valuable features for us are the APIs, which we commonly use, as well as the scheduling capabilities and file transfers."
"It performs better in real-time transactions."
"The ability to stand up a highly available SOA Suite, which has full DR capabilities, in a remote center and synchronize the databases using Data Guard."
"The product allows you to visualize how a company is working currently by providing rich possibilities for analysis such as the audit trails and therefore shows where improvements might be valuable."
"I found the adapters to be most useful."
"Middleware jobs developing for EC, ERP, and shipping systems become easier."
 

Cons

"Community editions need more attention."
"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."
"It should have some amount of logging."
"Limitation on external subscribers to listen to the messages on the bus."
"Mule ESB isn't as secure as IBM. Financial companies go with IBM for that reason."
"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."
"MuleSoft isn't as mature as some other integration technologies out there like IBM WebSphere. There's room for growth, and MuleSoft is working toward that."
"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."
"The technical support is good, we have premier support which costs extra."
"I want to see easier integration connections with other cloud-based tools."
"An important area that can be improved is the product's data monitoring. When we use the solution for interfacing or end-to-end data monitoring, we want to know exactly where the data is going and exactly where it is failing, or where there is an issue."
"Its function options can be improved."
"The interface is too complicated. Making modifications still requires too much technical knowledge."
"They supply lots of documentation but finding what we need is challenging at times."
"The Maven integration in JDeveloper is very basic and might be enhanced to allow the proper use of Maven."
"The product is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"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."
"The product is moderately priced."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SOA Suite
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
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.