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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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
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 19.3%, down 22.4% compared to last year.
Oracle SOA Suite, on the other hand, focuses on Application Infrastructure, holds 3.8% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

PurbayanSaha - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 solution offers multiple deployment options."
"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 for Mule is the number of connectors that are available."
"Once it is started, we don't see any problems on a day to day basis."
"The cloud and integration abilities are most useful allowing us to use applications such as Salesforce and DataWeave."
"The most valuable feature is that it's programmer-friendly, so it's very easy to develop APIs."
"The transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."
"I like that it's user-friendly. Compared to other ESBs, I find it easier to use. I like it better than other ESBs. I like the connectors, which make calling the APIs through the routers easier."
"The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful."
"The most valuable features for us are the APIs, which we commonly use, as well as the scheduling capabilities and file transfers."
"We were able to scale out using multiple application and web servers balanced by hardware load balancers and Weblogic clustering."
"Middleware jobs developing for EC, ERP, and shipping systems become easier."
"The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature."
"Valuable features include web service development and cloud connectivity."
"Provides connectivity between discrete systems and has availability."
"Conceptually, how it integrates a lot of essential enterprise process components. That's the most valuable."
 

Cons

"There are limitations with the subscription model that comes with the product."
"It's not easy to troubleshoot and we still can't make it work."
"Limitation on external subscribers to listen to the messages on the bus."
"There are some issues with both stability and scalability."
"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."
"The solution's setup needs to be a bit more straightforward and its support needs to respond faster."
"The price of Mule ESB could improve."
"It would be great to see implementing security modules as a feature."
"The technical support is good, we have premier support which costs extra."
"The interface is too complicated. Making modifications still requires too much technical knowledge."
"The solutions can improve the communication or translations between formats, such as JSON and XML. The JSON REST API could improve."
"If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit."
"Decrease the number of internal resources which the product uses."
"They supply lots of documentation but finding what we need is challenging at times."
"The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved."
"It's also not developer-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Plan your licensing model (cloud or on-premises or hybrid) that will allow seamless integration with new partners."
"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."
"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."
"This product is expensive, but it does offer value for money."
"This is expensive. In my next project, we had to go to other vendor."
"The pricing must be improved."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"The product is moderately priced."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
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: May 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.