MuleSoft API Manager Reviews

We worked predominantly for the BFSI financial sectors and for one of the automobile industries. They're taught in Europe. 

The applications where the customers wanted to download a report, a customer is associated with multiple customers, where they wanted to download the reports for analytics or just wanted to see what is the annual income or something like that. We expose an API for each customer. We will apply a policy where the APIs are being secured. So, each customer will have their own client ID and client secrets.

It has improved a lot in terms of monetizing your API. You get a benefit out of it, and then you secure your API. You restrict the external threats, managing the API end-to-end and governing it. All the features are pretty cool.

Overall, the platform is pretty good, I cannot say which one specific feature is good. The idea of an API Manager is really interesting.

One improvement is to add a plugin in the API Manager. If an organization is using SOAP services or legacy APIs. Maybe I don't want to migrate it to rest API, but my plugin should be able to convert Jason to XML. Basically, protocol transformation features in API Manager.

I have used it for over eight years as a service provider.

As for the stability, no issues up until now.

For scalability, our current licensing is for only ten APIs. Regarding the scalability part, haven't tested it yet.

We had some production issues, and we did escalate them. We got a good response from the customer support team.

It's cloud, so that's the pro. It has all the features that other API manager does, and there are some features that vary from product to product. Everything cannot be brought upon MuleSoft or Anypoint API Manager.  

Right now, the universal API Manager is applicable for any API hosted in any server, it is not only MuleSoft. If we can bring the feature, I am a customer who has a MuleSoft API, as well as an on-prem API, which is developed on Java or some other integration tool. Still, I wanted to leverage the API Manager capability to my non-mule APIs. If these kinds of features are provided to the customer, I think they should be very happy with that approach.

It is complex because it requires a lot of development effort and to understand the business. Additionally, it also requires an understanding of the requirement of how the API behaves. It should be very generic. So first, we can start off with SOAP services because the SOAP services accept only the XML. There should be some kind of configurations that you are plugging in the API Manager where you just define a scheme. This is just an idea where you have to define your scheme as in your platform API Manager and then define your SOAP services. API Manager will do a protocol transformation so we don't touch the existing applications. 

Many clients will also be attracted to this approach. The solution is deployed on the cloud. Deployment time depends on the deployment topology. In the cloud, it is pretty fast. We leverage the CICD framework for any deployment. It takes a maximum of a minute. One person can handle the deployment. There is no maintenance required for the product.

Our customers have a lot of concerns about the increased pricing. The customer feels MuleSoft is very costly, and they are also exploring other integration tools for a lower price. Maybe we should retain the existing customers by offering some discounts. At least the existing customers can be retained this way. This is regarding the licensing part only because customers based out of North America and Europe have shown many concerns recently. They are a bit concerned about pricing.

We help customers to build and manage an API. We help them to integrate their platforms and applications. I think a complete cloud setup gives a lot of flexibility. Customer need not worry about their environment or servers. The complete cloud setup has a 99.99% uptime. So, there is no downtime. I would recommend a complete cloud setup. Overall, I would rate MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager an eight and a half out of ten. That one and a half points will be dedicated because of some of the missing features, which I have seen from other API managers.

We use MuleSoft API Manager effectively to manage traffic, especially in scenarios where we need to control access to sensitive data for public bodies. By implementing the API gateway, we ensure traffic control and enhance security for personal data APIs. This solution provides a layer of control and security without changing our existing technology stack. It also helps in managing traffic for mobile applications, ensuring seamless consumption of our services while applying necessary policies for governance.

The most effective features of Anypoint API Manager for policy enforcement include security enforcement, rate limiting, client enforcement, traffic control, service level agreement policies, and caching policies. These features provide a comprehensive set of tools to ensure governance and security across our APIs, enabling us to meet the diverse needs of our clients effectively.

To improve Anypoint API Manager for the next release, it should focus on better consumption scalability, especially for smaller APIs. The current model doesn't perform well for APIs with lower volumes, impacting their efficiency. Enhancing consumption scalability about capacity and transaction volume would greatly improve the overall usability and effectiveness of the product.

I have been working with MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for a year and a half.

I would rate the scalability of MuleSoft Anypoint as a seven out of ten. We have approximately 20 users of the solution at our company.

For the initial setup experience with MuleSoft's Anypoint, I would rate the easiness of the setup at five out of ten. While we hoped for a quicker and smoother setup process, we encountered some complications and challenges.

The deployment process for MuleSoft's Anypoint takes varying amounts of time depending on factors like our organization's architecture and familiarity with the technology. It wasn't always straightforward due to the complexities involved, such as integrating with Kubernetes.

While I find MuleSoft's product to be expensive, I believe in paying for value. If the product delivers as expected and provides excellent performance without issues, then the price can be justified. Currently, I'm not fully satisfied with the value of the price, but I'm hopeful that it will improve.

Integrating API Manager with other systems like Flex Gateway is straightforward, but with brands like Fabric or Anypoint, it's a bit more complex. We need to adapt our approach and mindset, as it requires a different philosophy and development approach.

Overall, I would rate MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager as a seven out of ten.

We are using the solution to move away from a point-to-point integration to a more managed API platform while doing analytics to monetize the API. We use the solution daily.

When doing point-to-point integration, you would need to set up the VPN and Exchange, but it is now easy because once you define an API, you can quickly expose it to third parties. Since you do not need to redo the work, the time to market is faster. In terms of analytics, you can read the traffic rating and even the monetization.

The auto-creation of the API documentation is useful. I used RAML for that, and it made creating API catalogs easier. The solution automatically creates API documentation based on how you define it.

The solution is missing a monetization module. One of our key use cases is engaging with third parties, so the solution has a disadvantage because you are forced to enter a contract with another third party just for billing.

Moreover, there are readily-available connectors, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, but you will have to pay for that. In that way, the solution might get expensive. These connectors should be easily accessible from the marketplace once you have access to the platform, rather than them reselling other products to you. It now defeats the whole purpose of quickly integrating a finance platform without further costs, and you are then forced to redo an already available connector if the budget does not allow you to purchase that connector.

We are still in the initial stages but have been developing APIs on MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for roughly three to four months.

I rate the stability a ten out of ten because there have not been any issues so far. I am confident we can add more APIs.

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. We have 20 developers at our organization using the solution, and we hope to increase that number because we are roping in other developers from our SPUs to onboard them onto the platform.

The vendor trained us and offered support beyond the contract, so I rate their after-sales support positively.

Positive

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. It is straightforward, and deploying the solution took a week or two.

MuleSoft technicians trained and then assessed us on the solution as a part of the deployment process. The solution architect then monitored us until we could deploy the solution on our own. There were some APIs that they deployed themselves, and we started onboarding our own APIs once we were ready to do so.

During deployment, we required one person for the networks and one for the connectivity, and we also needed a solution architect. We had one person designing the architecture and one for development.

We only need one developer/administrator for maintenance, but maintenance is not an issue if you are used to the solution.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten since it is expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing costs.

The solution is highly rated and is in the top three in Gartner Reports, and I highly recommend it. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is API connectivity when integrating different systems or applications with the help of the API. There is a very robust API architecture that helps in directing different applications. In the B2B space, they have come up with a new offering, which is a partner manager, that helps to have the B2B integration with any EDI, X12, or any other B2B transactions. 

I believe the API connectivity within the cloud marketplace is most valuable. There are a lot of services available in the form of services or microservices, which are exposed via the API. Currently, API connectivity has become a mainstream integration. When you go to the B2B space where they have the partner ecosystem, there are a lot of suppliers and vendors there. Integrating them seamlessly for your supply chain or for your inventory management creates an efficient team of partners.

I think that they can bring some transparency in reference to the terms of the microservices architecture. It is already there, but it is not obvious. 

I have been working with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for the past seven to eight years.

We have not seen many tickets which tells us it is very stable.

Everything is on the cloud and it is very scalable. We have around one thousand five hundred users onboard.

I think that technical support is good. They are coming out with a community edition as well as an enterprise edition. If you have full enterprise support, they are pretty responsive. 

Positive

The setup was great. Depending upon the size of the program, and the number of integrations that you are having, you will keep on adding the people based on the business requirement.

If you have a strong engineering background and capability, then you can setup everything into automation where you can have three processes. When the pipeline is setup, then the deployment can be easy. They call a C4E Center for Enablement, which helps in terms of setting up the right practices, platform, governance, and best practices.

I think that it is pretty expensive. It is very innovative in terms of multiple licensing options out there. So, depending upon the need of the organization, they can offer different kinds of licensing. 

I would rate Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for process orchestration. We have some upstream and downstream systems, and the orchestration happens there with the help of MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager.

MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is a low-code product. You can build an API with Python or Java as well. Since it's a low-code tool, you can easily develop an API and expose it to the consumers. The solution's data view coding language is easier to use than other languages.

The solution should facilitate the creation of custom connectors for use cases where a user would require extra connectors. This will make it easier for the user to use the product.

I haven't suffered many breakdowns or security issues with the solution. Nowadays, we are using CloudHub. However, we faced some stability issues when we previously used RTF (Runtime Fabric).

MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is a scalable solution. More than 50 people use the tool in our organization.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is an expensive solution.

I would recommend the solution to other users because it is easy to use. However, users should first consider the solution's high license cost. Depending on the execution, the solution is worth the money. New users will find the solution easy to use.

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

We could employ it for tasks like access control and other minor functions like controlling licenses using an API gateway alongside SS rules.

It is a good management tool for controlling purposes.

Since most components are situated in the cloud, there's one particular hosted in the cloud. This presents a considerable challenge. While all other components are implemented on-premises, this specific one isn't permitted to be hosted in the cloud as per customer requirements. Shifting this component to an on-premises environment requires a significant effort. 

I have been using MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for more than two years.

It is a stable product. 

Regarding scalability, I have some uncertainty. During our interaction with the vendor, they introduced us to the possibility of running MuleSoft within a Kubernetes environment. If we can leverage this approach, it could potentially enhance scalability. However, during the testing phase, I found that the implementation process was rather complex.

I would rate the scalability seven out of ten.

The support is satisfactory.

Neutral

It is complicated. I would rate it three out of ten. We collaborated with professional service experts based in Hong Kong. When delving into the architectural aspects, it became apparent that the setup was intricate. Consequently, we relied on their assistance for both the installation process and the architectural design. The project itself extended over a considerable duration, not solely due to its length but also because it involved multiple components.

It is extremely high, and I would rate it one out of ten.

Personally, I find this to be a satisfactory option. I would rate the product seven out of ten.

Our primary use case for the solution is managing all the new APIs, and we deploy the solution on cloud.

We were trying to integrate, and we were trying to expose ourselves to external B2B scenarios. So we exposed our APIs overall and new API management. We found it easy to configure partners. It also allows us to create a new client secret, providing access limits, rate limits and more by splitting it into multiple tiers of services.

The integration of API management with security features is valuable. For example, communication security is very strong, and it automatically decrypts your images and encrypts your messages during communication. In addition, it provides different kinds of policies you can apply, which is just a plug-and-play configurable, which is very easy.

Monetization and cataloging can be improved. So we are looking for monetization to understand how well we can catalogue.

We have been using the solution for approximately four years and are currently using the latest version.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. Currently, all our developers use API Manager.

We have had a good experience with customer service and support. I rate them ten out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented the solution with an in-house team.

We have seen a return on investment.

I rate the solution eight out of ten. I advise new users to ensure they are configuring security as it is the most important key to success.

We primarily use the solution for our APIs. We are moving from monoliths to API architecture and we have approximately 10,000 to 12,000 APIs across banks, which are hosted on this product. It also provides us a gateway service to ingress the traffic as well as whole policy management where stuff is taken care of from the PC Any Point. It also has some API-level runtime policy management, which we use.

The gateway service to ingress the traffic is great. 

The whole policy management has been great. 

It has some API-level runtime policy management, which is useful for us.

The solution is extremely mature.

You can scale the solution.

The only drawback is that, due to the fact that we are going into a completely API structured way of working, it is very tightly coupled with the vendor solutions. For example, the run times. What happens is when you have to do a change or you have to do anything, you have to rip off all the APIs and rebuild it.

If you see the features, they are really good in one sense, however, they have a certain drawback when you get into the operational way of working. We definitely need APIs to have policies at runtime. They provide a feature where there's a lot of policy on authorizations, however, the only problem is the runtime. 

When the runtime upgrades, we have to basically publish a new build pack and then do all the rebundling. When we were 2000, 3000 APIs, it was okay. However, when you start going up to 10,000 to 12,000 APIs, it was too much.

The whole cost is an issue. Deploying to production is not a very easy job in that bank as we go through the whole change process. The whole tight coupling of the product is a problem. 

As a bank, we didn't want to take any risk of getting so much tightly coupled with any vendor product. It should be replaceable as required. That's the only reason we are now changing products.

The upgrade is a very messy process. Mule 3.X to 4 or 4.2 requires you have to rewrite the APIs. It is not just upgrading the build pack with a runtime. That is something that gets us scared a lot. They came back and told us when we move to four run times we had to upgrade. You had to rewrite the APIs. The APIs cannot just work in a straightforward manner. There is a lot of change and we have approximately 5% Mule APIs and then the rest are boot APIs. While, now, that means 5,000 APIs need rewiring, after two years, we might have 20,000 APIs. They should have a proper way of having backward compatibility.

The initial setup is complex. 

If they are going with that control pane in a cloud, which is a very good feature and it is a managed service, they should give it 24/7, 100% uptime. They should also spin it across multiple regions. Currently, they are just the US and the EU is coming up. However, they should add, for example, China or Asia, et cetera. We operate in more than nearly 40 countries. Every country has a lot of its own governance and compliance and regulatory checks or some, where we cannot host to the cloud.

We have used the solution for three and a half to four years at this point.

We have a massive set up and definitely, there are sometimes a few issues, which come here and there, however, we manage to build a resiliency inside that.

We have scaled from a few hundred APIs to 10,000 APIs. Just on the retail part, the gateway service runs more than 125 million transactions per day. It's a huge setup we have. 

The only drawback back again is that their gateways are pretty heavy on hardware. Therefore, we spend a lot of money on the hardware. If you compare with Kong, Kong actually can just replace everything with two VMs. We have 500 VMs running for us as gateways. It has scalability, however, it will cost you, which is a problem.

Technical support has been helpful. There were also people embedded in my team.

We are migrating from Mule to Kong now. We just have signed the contracts and we are basically getting the thing set up. It is a big project and it is going to take maybe another three to four months to roll it out to non-production and maybe another five months into production as we need to get everything in compliance and clear.

The initial setup, if you go back three or three and a half years, definitely, for us, was complex. As a bank, we run through a lot of securities. Since then, they have matured the process. They worked with us, to do some upgrades. Kong also will have to do a few things for us, once we migrate. Currently, we are already finding some issues, which Kong is trying to help us and fix it. However, Mule took a bit of time to set up. If we were to do it now, it would be easy. 

They have come up with API management and cloud hub, which is the manual service. We have not used it much, however, there are some use cases from a different part of the bank that tried it out. It's a good option as you get rid of the whole operational management side of the whole control pane. The control pane we are running is a PC 1.7.3 or something, which is old and coming up on the end of support.

The cloud hub may solve the problem of the control pane, even though they have some issues with the maintenance windows and stuff. Due to the fact that the policies are cast in the control pane, and run times can struggle, if the control pane goes down or needs maintenance because we need a hundred percent of availability in some way or other, it needs to be resilient also. The maintenance windows can cause trouble for us in banking.

We originally signed a three-year licensing agreement.

There's room for improvement on the licensing. They could do better.

I'm not sure I would recommend the solution to everyone. The approach we have taken is, we have moved out completely from the Mule APIs to Spring Boot APIs. We will decouple the whole vendor locking and stuff. However, it depends on the use case for each company. There is no good and bad product. These guys are both very mature products. Depending upon the use case, you will have to consider how you will handle scaling, for example, or other challenges. 

Everything has a drawback and plus and minus, so pros and cons. Even Kong is a new product. It may be a good performer, and very lightweight, with low infrastructure needs. We don't know. 

Our cyber is very strong. Like us, people will have to evaluate, depending upon their use cases, all the pros and cons of security and see how it fits. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

We're using MuleSoft API Manager to integrate with an endpoint in our backend system to import much information into Salesforce. Other tools didn't allow for as many API calls, so we used it to create a new endpoint.

The tool needs to improve customization and interface. 

I have been using the product for a year. 

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. 

The technical support has been very responsive. I've opened three cases, and the previous ones were solved quickly.

Positive

I'm currently deploying MuleSoft API Manager, but it's not fully deployed. There have been some challenges, mainly related to IP restrictions, which I believe are on our side. The testing phase took about two months due to people being on holiday. I'm hoping the actual deployment will go quickly, but I'm unsure how long it might take as technical issues could arise.

I can't say definitively about cost savings since we're still in the testing phase. MuleSoft uses separate testing and production environments, with more resources allocated to production. So far, in testing, it works fine and does everything it needs to, but I'm not sure how performance will compare in production.

We faced IP restriction challenges, which we resolved by changing the authentication method from an API key. This solved the issue for now, but we'll need to verify it again in production.

Based on my 2-3 years of experience with MuleSoft products, I'd rate MuleSoft API Manager eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is to consolidate server information about product stocks. We have data in different systems and offer an API to provide users with consolidated information. Our main system is SAP, and we use standard connectors to integrate it with Microsoft.

The most valuable feature has been the standard connectors, especially the integration with SAP. It was crucial for us since most of our information is stored in SAP, and accessing this data seamlessly was very beneficial.

The setup process could be simpler. We are still discovering some features, and simplifying the initial configuration would be helpful.

We have been using MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager for six months.

I rate the product stability an eight. While we have yet to encounter major issues, our experience is still limited, and we are in the discovery phase.

We still haven't contacted the support team directly. Initially, we conducted a proof of concept with our internal team, focusing on integrating with Microsoft products. Subsequently, we transitioned to working with the whole API team, who have found it easy to use.

The deployment model was cloud-based.

We implemented the product in-house.

It's too early to determine the exact ROI for the product as we are still in the initial stages of implementation and use.

The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable.

We evaluated Amazon API Gateway and Google's solution. After trying the proof of concept, we chose MuleSoft because our directors preferred it.

The integration process was straightforward. As the software manager overseeing our current IT workflow, integrating the product was a smooth experience. While we have only begun exploring its full potential, initial impressions suggest ease of use and usefulness. The configuration services were particularly seamless, contributing to our overall positive experience. Therefore, the integration process is easy rather than difficult. We conducted a proof of concept involving one of our developers and found the APIs provided by MuleSoft user-friendly.

Overall, it is a very intuitive and good product. It has proven to be effective for our use case so far. I rate it a nine out of ten.