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OpenESB vs webMethods.io 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

OpenESB
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
webMethods.io
Ranking in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (5th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (11th), API Management (11th), Cloud Data Integration (10th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) category, the mindshare of OpenESB is 2.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 8.8%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
webMethods.io8.8%
OpenESB2.7%
Other88.5%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
 

Featured Reviews

PP
Integration Architect at Pymma consulting
Easily define choreography and orchestration with this process-oriented solution
We provide contracted services for our customers that include coordinating with providers and implementing the solution.  A current project includes using the solution to deploy 200 microservices.  The process-oriented solution allows you to define choreography and orchestration. This feature…
YM
Developer at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers strong integration capabilities and reliable features but needs pricing and scaling improvements
Many things are evolving with the AI buzz in the market. What I would like to see improved or enhanced in webMethods.io in the future is that since webMethods.io is already under IBM, I think IBM will introduce and integrate AI into it. Additionally, regarding what webMethods.io can improve is the license cost. Other cloud players are also providing the same kind of functionality, such as AWS and Azure. webMethods.io is being installed on-premises, but AWS is providing it directly in the cloud. When comparing the license cost and request per minute cost, webMethods.io needs to address that. There are many competitors in the market for this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is being able to implement business processes while keeping track of the design from BPMN to a BPEL Implementation."
"OpenESB pushes the organization to clearly define service boundaries and interfaces. So it motives the business and the development teams to clearly define their business services and processes they want to implement. OpenESB supports fine and coarse-grain granularity for the services and supports top-down and bottom-up approaches for the services, processes definition, and composition."
"The core is very stable."
"The process-oriented solution allows you to define choreography and orchestration."
"The solution has a very comprehensive and versatile set of connectors. I've been able to utilize it for multiple, different mechanisms. We do a lot of SaaS and we do have IoT devices and the solution is comprehensive in those areas."
"The developer portal is a valuable feature."
"It has a good integration server, designer, and a very good API portal."
"The MFT component of webMethods, for example, is easy to set up and convenient to use. It handles files very efficiently and it is easy to automate tasks with complex schedules. Monitoring is centralized to MWS which can be used to monitor other products as well (Trading Networks, BPM, MFT, etc.)"
"WebMethods.io is a powerful tool, but it requires skilled people who can fully utilize its potential."
"There's hardware, software and application integration, providing hosting flexibility."
"It frankly fills the gap between IT and business by having approval and policy enforcement on each state and cycle of the asset from the moment it gets created until it is retired."
"Operationally, I consider the solution to be quite good."
 

Cons

"Regarding its management, a web console being able to synchronize distributed instances would be great."
"The documentation of the product must be improved. It could be tricky to find the right documentation on a topic since the documentation is spread in many places. I advise the new joiner to contact the community to get entry points and additional documentation. Tutorial and Video must be present to take up the product."
"The documentation needs to be better."
"Cloud deployment is weak and needs to be improved."
"The patching of infrastructure is not very smooth and improved authentication should be added in the next feature."
"When migration happens from the one release to an upgraded release from Software AG, many of the existing services are deprecated and developers have to put in effort testing and redeveloping some of the services. It would be better that upgrade releases took care to support the lower-level versions of webMethods."
"It is difficult to maintain."
"Technical support is an area where they can improve."
"The licensing cost is high compared to other options."
"As webMethods Integration Server is expensive, that's its area for improvement."
"The initial setup of the webMethods Integration Server is not easy but it gets easier once you know it. It is tiresome but not difficult."
"webMethods Integration Server needs to add more adapters."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Community Edition is a full product you can use in production, it does not have limitations like other alternatives."
"The cost for the prediction instrument is high because it is charged per instances based on prediction, but the rest of the solution is free."
"There are two versions. The first is the community version, which is free and contains the last part of the feature, but if you want to get the Enterprise version, you'll have to pay €60,000 which covers support and two instances on production."
"webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them."
"webMethods.io Integration's pricing is high and has yearly subscription costs."
"Initialy good pricing and good, if it comes to Enterprise license agreements."
"There is a license needed to use the webMethods Integration Server."
"This is an expensive product and we may replace it with something more reasonably priced."
"The solution's development license is free for three to six months. We have to pay for other things."
"Pricing is the number-one downfall. It's too expensive. They could make more money by dropping the price in half and getting more customers. It's the best product there is, but it's too expensive."
"I do think webMethods is coming under increasing pressure when it comes to their price-to-feature value proposition. It's probably the single biggest strategic risk they have. They're very expensive in their industry. They've been raising the price recently, especially when compared with their competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Built.io Flow?
The tool helps us to streamline data integration. Its BPM is very strong and powerful. The solution helps us manage digital transformation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them.
What needs improvement with Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Built.io Flow, webMethods Integration Server, webMethods Trading Networks, webMethods ActiveTransfer, webMethods.io API
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenESB vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.