IBM API Connect Reviews

We are using IBM API Connect to integrate bank applications. We are linking frontend services with the backend to prevent unwanted penetration.

I have found IBM API Connect to be highly secure, efficient, easy to deploy, and has a great GUI. It can operate and integrate well with other vendors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

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

The solution has a modern cloud and it has been stable and reliable. We have not had any breaches of security.

The solution is highly scalable, you can scale up and down. It has good performance, and you are able to customize the APIs to what you want.

The support we have received from IBM has been great, they have been very responsive.

I have previously used Oracle API gateway. When comparing the two, they are both very reliable and have good APIs but IBM on-premise installation is more flexible.

The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit.

We have an architectural roadmap to follow while doing the implementation of the solution and it took approximately three months for our teams to complete. I had some support from IBM during the process.

The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away.

The solution is very good and might not be suited for everyone's use case. Organizations might not need such a robust solution that is priced as high as it is. The demographics can play a role in if this solution is suitable, it depends on what others are using to make it competitive. For example, in Africa, the use of this solution is very low, they are not thinking too much about security. However, if your organization wants to take its operations to the next level then this solution might be the right choice.

I rate IBM API Connect an eight out of ten.

We are using it for some applications that are useful for banking.

It is easy to use and stable.

It should be cheaper.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have around 1,000 users. We have a technical team of 10 to 20 people. They include managers and developers.

It is easy to install. It takes one or two days for deployment.

It should be cheaper. It has a yearly licensing.

I would rate IBM API Connect a nine out of 10.

It is the go-to solution for API repository products. We use it for runtime by designing certain products, and those products are subscribed to by various consuming systems.

It has made API monetization quite easy. I can simply log onto the API dashboard and see who has used how much and whether they are using their quota or not. If they go beyond their quota, I can then give them a higher rate. Thus, it has helped us with API monetization.

We really like the runtime capabilities of IBM API Connect. The creation of products and the control of the monetization and hit rate are some of the features which we've found very valuable.

There are certain areas that need improvement. The first one is the design time setup. It has a lot of customizable fields, but we need certain standard fields to be added, such as what all of the consuming systems are. This needs to be very clearly articulated during the design time.

The second, which was a very big issue for me for adoption, is that they don't give any out-of-the-box solutions for knowing how many users have logged on during the design time and who has access to the portal for how much time. There is no capability right now to tell me the usage details and user rights.

As for additional features, design time user analytics would be great to have in the next release.

I've been using this solution for one and a half years.

It's quite stable.

Right now, we are using the design time thoroughly, but we are in the nascent stage for the runtime. So we just have a couple of systems using it, but going forward, we have plans for extensive adoption of the runtime capabilities.

We were previously using WSRR, and we switched because IBM stopped providing any updates to that product. Also, it was primarily design time only; there was no runtime capability.

The initial setup was a little bit complex because we wanted to put it in a proper Kubernetes cluster. So we had to learn Kubernetes and then do it.

It took us a month to deploy the solution.

We used IBM directly for implementation. We've been using IBM services for the past 13 years, and we are okay with their level of expertise.

I would urge others to use both design time and runtime and not just use it as a repository. I would suggest that they utilize the runtime features, which are pretty strong. First, they can secure your API ecosystem.

Second, they have very good monetizing capabilities, which allow you to design products and see who accesses those products. Usage-based and storage-based restriction capabilities are present, which are probably some of the best on the market today. So, I would really urge people to just go beyond the design time and also utilize API Connect in runtime as well.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate  IBM API Connect at seven because it is a little bit weak on design time.

We primarily use the solution for a bank. It's used for the operations portion of the bank. It's primarily used for the review of the personnel in your accounts et cetera. It's for many operations for the bank.

The interface is very nice. It makes the solution easy to use and navigate.

You can install it in coordinates, in general, and you can deploy it in Amazon, in Google, in the IBM cloud, or other clouds as well. You don't have to worry about having to work on a specific cloud. It makes it very flexible. This is very important.

The product is quite robust. 

The initial setup is very easy and the deployment is very quick. 

The documentation needs to be a bit better. It's very sequential, however, I don't understand what options to choose for certain tasks. I need to read all of the documentation to find what I need. It's easier to look at recommendations or to watch Youtube videos that show specific examples. 

There needs to be more in the toolkit to complement the product. We could have more features, for example, for queries to the platform. 

I've been using the solution for three years or so. It's been a while. 

The stability has been fine. We've found it to be very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze. In the past versions, stability was a bit of an issue, however, in the latest version, we have found it to be much better and much more reliable. We are satisfied with it so far. 

The scalability has been good. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

We have an average of 1,000 people using the platform normally. On top of that, there are 10 developers that are also on it at any given time. 

Technical support could be better. They are so-so. They could be more supportive and be better at answering questions. We'd like it if they made issues easier to resolve.

There's also a general lack of documentation, which sometimes means finding answers on your own is difficult to do. 

The initial setup is not overly difficult or complex. It's very simple and straightforward. 

The deployment is quite quick. It only takes about one hour to have everything up and running. 

I'd recommend the solution to other users and organizations due to the fact that it is very, very easy to use. The product is good, however, that said, they need to pay more attention to their documentation and support. 

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We have largely been satisfied with the solution and its capabilities.

We are IBM partners.

The solution is primarily used as the API gateway. It's for the application that performs the function as the API for the consumer.

The customer seems to really like how this particular solution works.

The solution is very stable.

The functionalities on offer are very good.

The solution would be better if it had cloud functionalities.

It would be very helpful if it supported Azure and/or AWS marketplaces. Right now, if I want to set up something in Azure, I need to set up a VM from scratch instead of just being able to have it be supported and integrated.

I've only really been assisting my customer, who uses this solution. However, it's my understanding that they have been using the product for a long time.

The stability has been very good. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs. From a performance perspective, it's reliable.

The customer has many, many users on the solution currently. I can't speak to exact numbers. I know there are a lot.

I've never dealt with IBM's technical support. I'm unsure if the client even has a contract that allows them access to IBM's support. If they do, I would definitely reach out to discuss the product and its capabilities more. I'm not sure if a technical support license is extra or just comes with the license itself or if it expires over time, et cetera. I haven't looked into it at all.

I've never handled an installation before. I wouldn't be able to speak from personal experience. I can't get into details about implementation or deployment or how long the process takes.

I proposed to the client that they use the cloud-native API gateway in Azure or in AWS, however, they wanted to go for the API Connect.

I'm considering migrating API Connect to Azure.

I'm still doing the assessment for this product. That is due to the fact that the move to the cloud is just not only for this product. We have a lot of products in terms of the customer's applications. I need to assess everything together and then propose to my end customer.

I'm a vendor. I do assessments for my customer.

I wouldn't recommend this solution to other organizations at this time. It's on-premises and everyone is moving to the cloud. It makes more sense to seek out a cloud solution.

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Our use case for this solution, depending on the API Connect centralized team, is for registering any APIs. Once those are there, the main idea is that they have to be reusable and available like a global platform rather than just internal to your applications. API Connect does that, you register your API and it is available. Anybody who wants to use that function or that API can now go through API Connect with the current credentials and get access to your API. I'm a lead architect and we are customers of IBM API Connect. 

This product has provided us with a structured way for anybody who wants to develop any API. It has reduced the amount of time spent on engagement and involvement of the team. They should put it on the cloud and in a mode where anybody can take something like a post run or something and test an API. In that way it saves having to really engage with the source or engage teams. If I want a solution, I can just call API Connect, see that API, test it out myself, and see how it works. Just like an email, there is an API that you can use that can send an email to anybody. I then check how it works and can integrate it with my application. I really don't have to create a work order and go to the team and start engaging them. If it's there you can just started using it. 

Reusability is the biggest most valuable feature for us. The security is also a major feature in some ways because if it's in API Connect, the gateway, you're in and out, it's well organized, rather than having some internal solution where somebody has to manage the in and out. In API Connect, the certificates and all those things are managed pretty well. From a security perspective, it makes things easier. 

From an API perspective, it is pretty strong. Again, it all depends on how other teams are implementing like certificates. If you register you eventually have to request certificates which API registers, so it is secure. From that perspective, I think API Connect has a pretty decent product.

Improvements depend on your perspective and what you need the API to do. I think it has room for improvement because, for example, there's nothing to show that other teams might be dumping the same thing and you have no way of knowing if it's redundant. I feel that sometimes different versions of the same thing are put in there. Although there may be slight differences like including some extra fields, at the end of the day, you're almost dumping the same API again into API Connect. At some point the product should be able to tell you that there is already a similar API there and whether you're dumping an API that's almost identical to what is there.

I've been using this solution for three years. 

This solution is stable. 

This solution is scalable.

The technical support is very good. 

The initial setup is a bit complex regarding what you want to put into API Connect because you're giving to a centralized team that has no idea what API to take and use it for. The centralized team is just a team that has no idea what to collect from these hundred teams. You need to have an idea of what you're taking from them and what they're being used for. That's a bit of a challenge. Again, from a new development perspective, it brings a structural way of development of the future API.

I would definitely recommend trying this product. From a cloud perspective it's there, and from a management of API perspective, all that authentication authorization is quite strong. It's a complete product that you can implement and get a centralized repo of the APIs that you can use enterprise wide. If any other enterprise project comes up, it's worth checking what exists rather than automatically developing from scratch. 

The solution is very easy to use. It's not really complicated, at least for those who are already familiar with some IBM products. We didn't have a problem getting it up and running. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

The API manager of the enterprise exposes common functionalities to the front-end applications, beginning with the frontend of the executives who access clients' information.  The exposition of the functionalities of transferring funds and AFP which need to transfer the money from your account to a client's AFP.  The exposition of the core functionalities to the module of the sale of a product installed on the cloud of AWS, to create an onboarding platform for the client's prospect of the enterprise.

The product has a little use at the enterprise because the APIs have functionality with low use. The next steps are to enforce and grow the use of APIs through the creation of a governance department that aligns the construction's standards and defines the classifications of APIs. 

This is the main goal, to finally integrate the applications that will deploy on the cloud consuming the backends on-premise through IBM API Connect. Having the centralized management of APIs.

The most valuable features are:

1. The centralized management: this provides a management module that can deploy and apply security policies to all APIs, including all the gateways that are deployed on-premises and on any cloud because the gateway component can run at a VMware or in a Kubernetes cluster.

2. The analytics module: this provides a variety of visualizations of the APIs, products, subscriptions, and applications that can be defined for a second, a day, a week, a month. This module is deployed beside the gateway and collect all the traffic.

The product can be improved in the following  areas:

1.  The monetization because it doesn't include an online method to pay through a web system or with a credit card, where the analytics can be calculated.

2.  The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this  can be more decentralized components.

All of these areas can be improved. 

We have been using IBM API Connect for six months.

It's very stable.

The solution offers horizontal scalability. The power of the product is the high performance in security tasks done with dedicated hardware.

We implemented it with the official vendor of the product.

Another team selected the product.

I use IBM API Connect as a black box, I only consumed the APIs that it provides.

The services that I consume through IBM API Connect are beneficial. It can handle multiple API management.

The solution could improve security and performance.

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

I rate IBM API Connect an eight out of ten.