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Mule ESB vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of Mule ESB is 20.6%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus is 3.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

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.
Mustofa Yonus - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust product that needs to improve the functionality it offers related to API lifecycle management
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six to seven out of ten. My company consists of around 7000 employees, and we use the solution as an integrated service in around 300 to 400 systems, both internally and externally, making it a huge number. Our company uses the solution every minute and every second, and we can't function without it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mule ESB is a very easy-to-use and user-friendly solution."
"The most beneficial features of Mule ESB are the control plane and runtime plane."
"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 transformation and the data format are the features that I like the most."
"The most valuable features of Mule ESB are its ease of use, documentation, ease to adapt to newer security and vulnerabilities, and a lot of help available. Additionally, there is a lot of flexibility, many patches available, and they provide APIs. They are a market standard."
"Everything runs in Java, which is a useful feature."
"Easy connectivity and easy integration."
"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 features are the monitoring, ease of use, and easy to understand development GUI."
"The most attractive and beneficial feature is the ease of development."
"It's very stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a service-oriented architecture, SOA-based."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
"The product’s most valuable feature is stability."
"The GUI and IDE features of this solution are easy to work with and to develop. We find application management easy using this solution. It is a stable product"
"It is easy to develop. It has a very wide range of features. The older versions are very stable, and there are no issues with the product."
 

Cons

"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."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"It's not easy to troubleshoot and we still can't make it work."
"Documentation is cryptic, product releases are far too frequent, and upgrades become troublesome."
"Community editions need more attention."
"Limitation on external subscribers to listen to the messages on the bus."
"The payment system needs improvement."
"The price of Mule ESB could improve."
"The stability of their latest version is not on par with their classic version 5.X."
"In the configuration, where we need to customize, it takes more time that we expect it to, ideally."
"The initial setup process could be easier."
"The intermediate version that we are using has stability issues. These stability issues should be resolved, but it seems like TIBCO is not focusing on resolving these issues. The resolution timelines are quite high even for high-priority incidents. Its price should be lower. Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
"I don't like the product's API management platform, as it doesn't offer users enough functionality to help with API lifecycle management, making it a product that is way behind its competitors."
"Migration to cloud solutions or products should be made convenient, transparent, and easily understandable."
"Issues with the support, the fees, and the termination of the professional services are reasons we are looking for other solutions."
"If TIBCO could be able to sort the size of their base image in the Container edition, it would be really marvelous. Right now it's around 299 MB. We'd really want it to reduce to a few MBs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing must be improved."
"The price of the Mule ESB commercial version is expensive. However, they have a free community version."
"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 solution is 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."
"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."
"The licensing is yearly, and there are additional fees for services."
"The licensing cost is a challenge for quite a few customers."
"The biggest issue disadvantage of TIBCO is that it is expensive."
"Price-wise, I would say that the product is expensive."
"The price is on the higher side. For the same price, if I go to the previous version, I would have got a lot more capacity with similar kinds of features."
"Its licensing cost is considerably high as compared to other ESBs."
"When it comes to cost, TIBCO is much more competitive than a product like Pega."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
7%
 

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 TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that the performance is robust.
What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus?
I don't like the product's API management platform, as it doesn't offer users enough functionality to help with API lifecycle management, making it a product that is way behind its competitors. The...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ActiveMatrix Service Bus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
Colonial Life, CTBC Bank, New World Mobility, QUALCOMM, Swisscom Mobile, T-Mobile USA, Tata Teleservices, Telecom Italia
Find out what your peers are saying about Mule ESB vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix Service Bus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.