IBM API Connect Reviews

I use IBM API Connect to make migrations with different systems. 

We have used the cloud and on-premise deployments of the solution.

The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness. 

Improving the documentation would be beneficial as it currently presents navigation challenges. Incorporating a step-by-step guide could facilitate the integration or migration of various systems, including databases. The existing documentation only comprises plain text, hence incorporating more interactive instructions could enhance its usefulness.

I have used IBM API Connect within the last 12 months.

We are having some issues with the stability of the solution.

I rate the stability of IBM API Connect a seven out of ten.

We have approximately four people who use this solution in my organization.

I rate the scalability of IBM API Connect an eight out of ten.

The support from IBM API Connect is good.

I rate the support from IBM API Connect an eight out of ten.

I have no prior experience using a solution similar to IBM API Connect.

The initial installation was not simple. We had some issues with the deployment but we managed step by step. It took approximately two months to complete the implementation.

We use a team from IBM that assisted us with the implementation.

I rate IBM API Connect a seven out of ten.

We use this solution for rest-based, micro services to complete authentication. We are able to gather statistics and audit and throttle traffic. It also has a developer portal that allows users to browse their APIs and develop applications on them. It has solid features compared to some of the API services management services out there.

This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD.

The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform.

We have been using this solution for four years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution but scalability would come at a higher price. This solution supports our organization of 50,000 people.

The initial setup is reasonably straightforward.

We consciously decided to go with microservices to enable us to move quickly and to building the flexibility and capabilities in our applications. Whether the business is able to translate those investments into profits and returns is too early to tell.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

API Connect is mainly used as a gateway solution to expose, secure, and manage APIs. 

Using API Connect allows us to quickly create proxy APIs and saves time on end-to-end testing, which lets us deliver quickly to clients.

API Connect's most valuable features are API management and creation.

The developer portal could be easier to customize - as it's Drupal-based, I have to hire a Drupal developer to do it for me. I feel there should be a drag-and-drop or UI-based configuration to customize the developer portal. In the next release, I would like some support for file uploads and MQ integration.

I've been using API Connect for six years.

The newer versions, from 2018 forwards, are quite stable.

API Connect is scalable because it's completely containerized.

IBM's technical support is very good.

The initial setup was straightforward, and deployment took two days.

I did the implementation myself.

I would say that if you want stability and security, you should go for API Connect. It's a very robust product that lets you easily create and manage your API. I would rate API Connect as nine out of ten.

Having more integration and compatibility with different platforms is what I'm expecting in the next release of IBM API Connect.

The issues with this solution are mainly around support. Recently, people were discovering that WSO2 is commercializing it, because initially it was just open source. Right now, because they are commercializing it, the intro licenses are as costly as IBM. People say: "IBM is tried and tested", so it's people who know this who'll go the IBM API Connect route. Other people who just want to try out a more scalable solution, on the other hand, will go the open source route. Others will either just do the cloud version, because everything is less maintenance, while other people prefer doing everything themselves, e.g. in-house, from scratch.

IBM API Connect should offer more versatility to its users, because they only give you a specific level of the versatility, and this is something IBM should heavily invest on.

I've been using IBM API Connect since 2015.

I find the stability of IBM API Connect to be fine.

IBM API Connect is scalable, but scaling it is expensive, depending on what kind of hybrid or software you want to use with it. Every client has a different policy and deployment need.

The technical support for IBM API Connect is standard.

The issue with IBM that many people have realized is that there are times when the person logging those complaints actually needs to know the product. With other products or with competitors, you just need to tell them about the issues, and they'll guide you on what the problem might be. Support for IBM API Connect varies spec to spec, depending on your support level and the questions you have with whoever sold you the software.

I use different API management solutions because I'm a consultant. A customer might have IBM API Connect, while another customer might have Apigee. It also depends on what the customer has. All I do is strategy and implementation, while other people just want a consultant to deliver on specific vendors. It ranges from customer spec.

I've implemented this solution through a vendor team. I've always used consultants, partners, or integrators for implementing products.

Pricing for IBM API Connect varies. If they are offering me the platform, in particular what they used to call Bluemix and what's now called IBM Cloud, it will be subscription-based pricing. They'll charge you based on how many APIs are called off your specific portion of the Cloud.

If you're doing your own private cloud, on the other hand, it's a special grade. You have to own most of that software licensing so that you can put it on your own private cloud.

I've evaluated X-Ray, WSO2, Software AG, Oracle, DataPower, and Apigee.

I do integration and I do API management. I do a lot of other things. I don't just use one product. I use various products depending on what the client asks.

For API management, I've used X-Ray, WSO2, Software AG, Oracle, DataPower, and Apigee. It all depends on what the customer has. I also have a personal experience with IBM API Connect.

How this solution is deployed depends on you. What matters the most are the gateways and the portals. The portals are mainly for onboarding. Whether you'll deploy it on-premises or on cloud is up to you. You can also do hybrid deployment in some instances, because there are people who do hybrid deployment, but the key component for aligning a deployment is mainly the portal and the gateway, because the gateway is the policy enforcement, while the portal is mainly for presentation and onboarding purposes.

Other people are running IBM API Connect, but others are not. They just prefer using their hybrid appliances, e.g. the DataPower, so it also depends. There are cases where you can just simply deploy this solution, but it still depends on the policies that you need to enforce. That's why I was saying the key components are the portals and the gateways, because the gateways are doing most of the work. The gateway handles the transactions. It does all the heavy lifting. The portal is mainly for presentation purposes.

I've used WSO2 and Software AG, and when you compare them with IBM API Connect, the principles are more or less the same. It's more on how you want to deliver the solution and what the true need of the customer is. You get people who are using it proactively, and that puts the products on the market and drives innovation, but you also get people who are really less integrated people and just build APIs on the portal. It all depends on the use cases and what the customers are offering.

The products are all different in a way, e.g. comparable to cars. A Mercedes Benz is really not that different from a BMW. It's just more of the driving dynamics, the comfort levels, and what the brands represent. A BMW will always be sportier than a Mercedes Benz, while an Audi will always be sportier than a Mercedes Benz. This is unless you're going for the real topnotch specs: the AMGs, then it becomes a different conversation. At the end of the day, it depends on the appetite and what their initial use cases are.

The number of users of IBM API Connect all depends on the deployment plan of the customer. You get fintechs, e.g. these are mainly coalitions with banks and financial institutions where they try and drive innovation through these tech companies. By giving them access to their assets through portals and APIs, they get to see most of their IPEs realized and used by other parties. These are the people that they couldn't even reach initially. It all depends on the specs and on the range.

As for technical people, I've seen that they don't have a preference in terms of tools, but it's a matter of where the product goes that gives them an inclination to stay with those, because that stack gives that effect. It's also a matter of how they can easily integrate with other components, e.g. how they can be incorporated in your two clouds, or your other CMS, to in-house. The user experience is the same as others.

The number of users of IBM API Connect can be increased. I've seen a portal that has 4,000 to 5,000 users, and these users are people who create products, e.g. applications. A lot of those apps utilize existing portals and their APIs. What's common on my standard is more payment gateways. Every institution will offer their own payment gateway, and offer a specific sense of liability they are comfortable with.

I'm not really recommending IBM API Connect to others. It depends on the investment. For people who are heavily invested in IBM, IBM API Connect is an easy solution, because you already have the underlying infrastructure, e.g. DataPower, which is the most important or expensive component of this solution. For other people, if they don't have it at all, it makes no sense to go the IBM API Connect route if they're using a different stack. As long as the product is working, and it's compliant to specific patterns, it doesn't really matter what you use. What really matters is your budget, what do you have in your storage, and use case levels.

If people just want to have something that they can try quickly and dirt cheap, anything else will do, but then, a lot of people are also struggling with adversity, because they feel like the universities or employers are not that heavily invested, and this means they're failing the present capabilities. You just need to show them how the platform works, so it still varies from customer to customer. It's also budget based.

From a ranking of one to ten in terms of features, I can rank IBM API Connect as number six. WSO2 is a five. I'd give X-Ray a four. Software AG is a number two. Apigee ranks number one for me.

In terms of flexibility, all these platforms are the same. They are the same, but they can be different in terms of target limits.

I'm rating IBM API Connect a seven out of ten. I can't give them a ten out of ten, because I feel that they have lost their touch with it.

It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data. It also works as a powerful integration tool for the internal and external transmission zone, allowing us to connect with different vendors easily.

There is room for improvement regarding the connectivity of the DevOps.

I have been using it for three years. 

The solution provides high stability. I would rate it nine out of ten.

It is designed to handle large-scale API operations, so it ensures high scalability. I would rate it nine out of ten. 

They are lacking in terms of customer service and technical support. I would rate it six out of ten. 

Neutral

The initial setup is easy. It is based on available courses and steps that are comprehensive and helpful.

The deployment process is facilitated and fast. It takes about an hour for the solution to be deployed.

The pricing is significantly high. I would rate it eight out of ten.

IBM API Connect is a really good API management solution that offers a variety of benefits and advantages such as rapid development tools and enhanced productivity. I would rate it nine out of ten.

I primarily use API Connect as a front end for any station, through which you can expose services to external or internal customers.

API Connect's best features are its data gateway, one of the strongest in the market, and its API manager, which has the local assembly transformation UI, which helps transform services from Maximal to JSON or vice versa.

API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database.

I've been using API Connect for over eight years.

There are some issues with API Connect's stability, with parts going down abruptly sometimes. Its stability doesn't compare well to Epigee or Kong API, and I would only rate it seven out of ten.

API Connect is easy to scale, I would rate it nine out of ten.

IBM's technical support is terrible - they're incompetent and slow to respond, even sometimes not responding at all until they have every bit of information.

Negative

I previously used Epigee, Kong API, and 3scale.

The initial setup was a bit tricky and required a lot of installation and system administration skills. I would rate the setup two out of ten. The deployment took around two minutes and could be automated.

API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten.

I wouldn't recommend choosing API Connect unless you have a big budget and need an enterprise solution. I would give API Connect a rating of seven out of ten.

We use this solution in a hybrid way. All the processes and data is in the cloud but the API gateway is part of the API Connect solution and runs on prem in Argentina, connected to the cloud.

The management of the API and API portal is good. 

The monetization of the API could be improved. The pricing for the consumer is also very important to improve this solution. Nowadays, we are sending information to other tool in order to process out of API Connect. They could improve this internal service in order to have the balance for the consumer's API for different companies, external to our company.

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a strong and stable solution. 

The initial setup is complex. When setting it up, you will need support. We are using AVP support from IBM. Its an extra support service. I would recommend using this kind of support because it will help your company move quickly in order to set up the different products. IBM AVP stands for accelerated value program.

I would rate this solution a nine out ten. 

My customers are using IBM API Connect for integration in the financial sector.

The most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol.

IBM API Connect could improve the security of the application and the integration.

I have been using IBM API Connect for approximately five years.

We have seven users using IBM API Connect and plan to increase the usage.

The technical support from IBM API Connect is good.

I rate the support from IBM API Connect a five out of five.

Positive

We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee.

I rate IBM API Connect an eight out of ten.

We deploy APIs to expose the BFFs of mobile apps, and this is mainly in the cloud. All mobile apps consume the APIs of your BFF. On-premise, we have APIs that expose services and mainly functionalities, such as the balance of the client or the customers or the products.

One of the most valuable features is the easy-to-use web interface.

Documentation for the CLI is not very complete. Also, the support could be improved, and we have had several problems with backing up and restoring the product.

We have been using the solution for two or three years.

The stability of the solution is good.

The scalability of the solution is good.

IBM support is not available in Chile, so we must go through other countries to get a response from customer support.

I would rate the setup as a medium in difficulty. 

The solution was first set up with the help of IBM, but when we moved to another environment, we followed the initial instructions given by IBM and implemented it ourselves. 

We used Bamboo as a pipeline for automatic deployment of the API. The deployment took four hours.

The product is easy to use, but the installation is not easy. We have a team of three architects who maintain the product. I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. 

We use IBM API Connect for external communication with outside partners and external companies doing business with our company. 

This solution is deployed on-premises. We are currently using Version 5.0, but we are upgrading to version 10.0, which is a cloud-based solution. 

One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it protects our backend system. We are exposing services to external parties and using this solution to protect the backend system, and to have a navigation in between. 

The installation process could use improvement. I hope that in the next release, the installation process is easier. 

My company has used this solution for at least four years. 

There have been some internal issues within the product that have caused instability.

This solution is scalable. 

API Connect is not straightforward to install. If you don't have a lot of dependencies in your organization, it will take a short amount of time. In our case, we took at least a month because of dependencies to other departments in the company. 

For our technical team, we have approximately 10 people, a combination of managers, admins, and engineers. 

We provide this solution to customers. 

There aren't any additional costs for the consumer solution. There is no cost for the consumers to use the services because we don't monetize the services. 

We have plans to upgrade from this solution. We are upgrading to ensure that we have a supported version late next year, in November or December, and are evaluating alternative solutions in the market. 

I rate API Connect a seven out of ten. This solution is stable, but maybe not the most modern product on the market.