MuleSoft API Manager Reviews

I have API experience with the entire lifecycle using Mulesoft.

This solution is widely used in API integration and there are many different use cases for it.

The most important features are the API management and API development.

I don't think that Mulesoft is doing an extremely good job.

The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is too heavy and some platforms are difficult to integrate with. The API gateway and API runtime are too heavy, which means that it is not suitable for microservices.

I have been using the Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for three or four years.

I have been in touch with technical support.

I have a great deal of API experience and I feel that Mulesoft could be doing better. It may be that my standards are a little bit high.

The initial setup is straightforward. From a management point of view, it is okay.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are solution integrators and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

It is used for integrating and logging data from legacy systems to make it available for other systems within the IT infrastructure in the enterprise. It is also used for data migration and making it available for customers, devices, services, and so on.

Essentially, it is for data governance and API governance.

The most valuable things about this solution are how it is implemented and managed, and that it is vendor-free.

For system integrators and analysts, it is pretty clear how this system works.

The documentation is great; it is always up to date and well-presented. If any details are missing then there is a blog available that contains a lot of details. There are also channels on YouTube to help you better understand the solution and what some of the processes look like.

The initial setup is very complex.

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

This solution is stable but it is important to remember that it is the glue between other systems that might have issues with instability. The MuleSoft platform connects all of the systems together and collects data from different sources to create new types of data and new statistics.

In general, it is used on a daily basis and most of the time, it's stable.

Scalability is perfect. The API Manager is used by large clients and is made to be scaled.

I have never been in contact with technical support. It is not often that something goes wrong.

I have worked with other API management systems such as those by Kong and Tyk. Each vendor has its own functionality that you need to know about so that you can work with effectively.

The initial setup is complex compared to solutions such as Kong or Tyk. There are many things to keep in mind concerning configuration, features, and different options for different systems. I would say that overall, it is very complex.

When all of the requirements are well defined, well described, clear, and consistent, the implementation is fast and can be done in a matter of weeks.

Maintenance only needs to be done when there is a change in business or operational processes. Also, there are some updates that are required but usually not many.

The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP.  You're not obligated but it is better to buy premium and official connectors, although they cost approximately $25,000 per year.

My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to first make sure that there are no alternatives that are most cost-effective, such as open-source products. Many of them are much cheaper but are still able to provide the same relevant functionality and the same level of data security.

I would say that MuleSoft has the best API manager but it is not the cheapest one and as such, not for everybody. It is not everyone who needs to connect expensive systems together.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

My primary use case for the solution is as an API gateway. I am an enterprise integration consultant and I implement it for customers.

I would say one of the more valuable features is the stability of the platform. The API gateways across the market end up exposing more or less the same functionality when it comes to the mediation exposure of the proxies. It was decent to work with it even though there weren't many stand out features. The user interface is consistent across all of the products. It's difficult to differentiate APG from IBM Connect or MuleSoft Anypoint platform. They have a rich user interface. 

I think while trying to evaluate the various products on the market, and what could be improved, I'm looking at the indications and analytics and the off-the-shelf dashboards that come with it. Those are things that really catch the eye. At the end of the day, it's the functionalities and the way they integrate with the multi-cloud platforms and other backends that are underpinning the hood. If I have to present an API solution to somebody and if I can show them what are the off-the-shelf dashboards that you get in the analytics profile, that becomes a major eye-catcher to take the discussion forward.

I've been using the solution for a year or so. 

Stability is very good. 

I would think scalability depends on whether you're doing it on premises or on the cloud. I don't have experience with that but I think, for example, since Kong is more into clustering and the like, so scalability in Kong should be more straightforward because it's more evenly distributed. 

I haven't contacted technical support but I have been in touch with some of its engineers and they were a pleasure to deal with. They're good engineers and they are very helpful.

In terms of initial setup, of course WSO2 with Kong is more simple than this.

The advice I would give is that this is a platform that's meant for a complete digital transformation of an organization. If you want to realize the entire capacity or the entire power of the platform with the capability APIs and the system APIs, you know you've got to use the API-led connectivity. And here I think lies the true power of the platform; that instead of using it just as an API gateway, you can take it further and I think that is the real value that market peers are not able to offer. It's a standout feature of the API platform and MuleSoft.

I make proposals and whether the customer chooses it or not is up to them. I usually look at  different products, and then we try and see what fits the customer best. It's not black or white. If there is a need for an entire landscape of low APIs and not just proxies, I think MuleSoft is a good way to go.

I would rate this product an eight out of 10. 

We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager has many use cases that involve API integration.

The most valuable features are API development and API management. 

From a management point of view, this solution is okay. It is more lightweight than the runtime module.

The most important thing that should be improved is that it is too heavy. Even the API gateway and the API runtime are too heavy, which makes it more difficult to integrate. With the talk of microservice nowadays, this is something that needs to be improved.

It is not very easy to integrate into other platforms, such as those from IBM.

I have been using the Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for between three and four years.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Frankly speaking, I don't think that Mulesoft is doing an extremely good job. It may be because it's not that easy to satisfy me from an API point of view, whether in development, maintenance, or management. I have been working in this area for quite a long time and my standards are a little bit high. That said, this is a competitive market and I understand that it is not easy to make a good product.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is for partners to exchange data and information with our company. It can be board members, as well as customers that can connect with us in order to exchange data. 

Overall the platform is good. The stability of the platform is very good. The entire solution has worked well for us. 

Whenever there was an issue, the support was excellent. 

I work with the solution more from a strategy perspective. I don't get into the day to day of how it is run and things like that so I'm not sure if I'd be able to get into features or what may be missing.

The pricing is quite expensive. It should be adjusted to make it more affordable for users.

When they come up with a completely new version of the solution and there is no direct upgrade for the customer from the older version to the new version there's a lot of work to be done. Whatever time and money you have invested cannot be directly used in the new platform.

When they come up with a new version release or a new platform the customers, existing requirements, etc. should be transferred over easier. Migration every time there is a new version is difficult. It's something that they could fix.

I've been using the solution for the last three years.

The stability of the solution is excellent.

The scalability of the solution is very good.

We've found technical support to be excellent. We've been very satisfied with the level of service that the solution provides.

The initial setup isn't complex, although when you are installing the solution you need a moderate amount of competency.

Deployment took about six months.

The licensing costs for the solution are quite high.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Mainly the pricing is the big down-side of the solution. 

I'd advise others to ensure that they need to have the right partner who understands the system before they get into the implementation process.

My primary use case is investigating the pros and cons of different platforms for the benefit of the application lifecycle. This includes security and other aspects. One of my goals is to make it easier to create API inventories.

The most valuable feature is the ability to investigate APIs.

The interface could be made more user-friendly.

Better documentation to help explain each of the features would be really helpful.

I have been using Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager for about six months.

I have not needed to contact technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward. The length of time required for deployment varies based on the requirements. It is not always the same, but the average is a few hours.

I implemented this solution.

This is a good solution but nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We do business with a lot of other vendors and customers. Our main core business is to lend loans and lease furniture. In this context, we have to create partners and we have to do multiple transactions with multiple vendors and multiple facilitators. In this venture, we consider APIs the best, and our most sophisticated medium to communicate with other partners and other lenders at home and elsewhere.

We want APIs to be the most sophisticated and more robust. REST APIs are the core in this area. We have been using Mulesoft specifically to create our REST APIs, enlarge them, and also expose the endpoints to our vendors so that they can use them. Internally, we have been using the APIs extensively for all of our internal application communication. Raw ping and workflow and all those things. We use this Mulesoft extensively for API management, REST API stack, and also for the workflow.

We're going to have a task with another bank who will be lending us the loan or they will be giving us some money for us so that we can lend this to double customers and expand into different industries. We're doing the business directly with those banks who we're really trying to work with, and doing joint collaboration so that we can lend loans to the customers, the retail customers.

In this context, we have to collaborate with those banks in a sophisticated way. Few banks are very, very advanced in the necessary technology. We propose of them usage of the APIs. The advanced banks already have the APIs. That kind is a very smooth transition, but the banks whom we're working with, a couple of small banks, don't have the API stack. Whatever the legal systems they have, we enforce them to convert those existing legacy systems as the APIs, and also those other REST APIs, and we can have a smooth transition.

The initiative went very well, and they're very happy with a lot of the tasks we have been doing. Now, they have extended the business. They want to censor their existing systems. They want to expand their system. This is one of the examples of how the solution has improved our organization. In this juncture, we place Mulesoft as one of the core solutions in our organization API stack. Communicating with one application and other application, or the validation of the loan ID or the validation of a customer or generating the customer base, whatever it is. For the day to day tasks, we use API systems only. API is one of the most crucial parts of the IT initiatives which are going down in our office on a day to day business.

The ESB, the enterprise service bus is what we primarily use. In addition to that, the API management. These are the two tools which we have been using extensively. The enterprise platform. 

I don't think that it's a negative, but one of the biggest things is this: when they were merging with Salesforce they never said anything about that, they did not give any positive or negative news. They were just silent about that. I think there's something clandestine has been happening over there. I'd like to know what is the future roadmap of Mulesoft is after it got merged with Salesforce.

Nobody is giving proper information because I called a couple of Mulesofters and they're not giving information. I don't know whether they're naïve, or they don't want to disclose about whatever it is. That is the first thing they have to address. If they don't address probably they'll lose a lot of their customer base, so they must have to address that.

Also, in regards to near future resellers - they have to increase the capabilities for the Kubernetes, for continuous integration. Mostly you can call the DevOps. Still, now there are some gaps out there they have to address for the DevOps capability like continuous integration exclusively for the Kubernetes and Docker. They say that they have complained, but I asked for realistic examples and concerns, and still very few things have to be addressed. That is the first thing that they're going to have to address probably. I had some discussions with those people there. 

The second thing is they're mostly focusing on the security. I think security plays a vital role in going forward in regards to API stack. Not only for the API stack, but also for the enterprise service capabilities in which security plays a vital role. They're adding a lot of security capabilities over there. That is also one other thing I hope they continue to work on in the future.

In addition to that, they're going to add a lot of additional plugins. Plugins in the sense they compiled from Salesforce and a couple of other applications, but they have to address a few more applications. They should take a cue from Webex Desk. If everybody is using Webex Desk, every third-party application, and they want to communicate with Mulesoft, they don't have any plugins. They have worked a lot on the plugins. 

Lastly, regarding the streaming of data. In terms of streaming of data, I don't rely on Mulesoft. Whenever they do new data streaming or any streaming, the conceptual architecture connects to us, like data streaming and also for video streaming. Because the streaming capabilities are very minimal they don't stream. The capability was not there.

I heard that they're addressing this issue, probably in the next couple of months. They're going to address this issue. If they are, then I think this will be one of their biggest achievements. I think it will impact their business and also their challenge. It will impact the whole pipeline also, so they can accumulate more customers.

I've been using the solution for two years.

The solution is a stable one. But as the API stack has been increasing, whenever the new stack is saving, at the end of the day we have got our own Kubernetes to connect the APIs completely. The capacity has been increasing day by day, so we have to increase the capacity. We have to do so regularly. At least quarterly, we have to do some capacity planning for that. It's not cost-effective and it's got a cost impact too. We have to invest something around a few thousand dollars to enhance this capability.

Their method is not cost-effective. It's some costly, but for the performance and the overall customers who are using our APIs and what we're doing internally, we're happy with that. The organization is ready to bear that cost, but our only concern is they have to address our tasks. Whenever we seek their assistance they should address our task quickly. They should not insist to us that somebody from there will show up and do some due diligence. I think that is not required for all the customers because we feel that we're mature enough to tackle our own Mulesoft, whatever the day to day usage is concerned. We don't need their assistance anymore.

If we need them we will definitely put in some clear understanding that we need their assistance. But in future, we might only need assistance for Docker and Kubernetes because we're having some challenges over here. Or, in relation to security, we might need their assistance. 

It's highly scalable. It's a good technology. We have to increase and plan the capacity in advance. We have to execute our IP partly with other business because our business is very aggressive and very highly patent-oriented. To meet our business expectations, our IT stack has to be more efficient and more robust. We have to scale our business acumen in a very aggressive way. At this juncture, what we have to do is make our technologies or our applications more scalable and more persistent and continuously integrated. At this point of time, the features are being generously added. But there should give some flashpoints or something like that because the capacity has been missing.

I'm not sure whether we don't know how to configure those features or not. We're naïve about those features or maybe Mulesoft does not have them, but whenever we end up with this capacity, it has been going down, then we have to do a lot of due diligence and we have to do some capacity planning, which means we have to do some fibering, which has happened three to four times over a period of the last two years. We want to reduce that because it might impact our business. Because we have aggressive targets and loan book should be more, or I'll say we're expecting more from the customers.

At this point in time, our API stacks have been more supportive and more resilient. Mulesoft never gave any problem, but to scale up to this kind of capability, yes, we have to do some fibering but everything is going well, fortunately.

In terms of usage, I can say 1,000 to 2,000 users on day to day basis, because we have got a very big call center. They're not aware that they're using these APIs, but previously the APIs randomly show. I can say around 2,000 users are there. I'm talking about business users, not technical enrollment.

We want to scale up the user count, and want to increase our loan book on a regular basis. We're enhancing and emphasizing most on our digital capability so that a lot of customers who are entitled to and get to enroll as our customers, will be rendered loans. They will get paid online. Lots of things are new here. Innovations are being added and getting added in the near future. The customer base will also be increasing, so to make this happen, we have to scale our capabilities, and we have to meet our increasing customer base.

I don't oversee the Mulesoft activities on a day-by-day because I work on the enterprise architecture security. We rarely go and focus on Mulesoft but whenever we ask them any questions, rather than addressing the question, they completely answer in such a way that they will do some due diligence. Somebody will show up at our premises, and they'll send some statement of work or something like that.

They want to turn every question into a business. I understand business is not a charity. But at least, being customer service, something you have to understand through the customer perspective, is that customers are expecting to do some due diligence and that you understand the customer complaint correctly, and then address their concerns. If there really is any business potential there, then you can address that.

Rather than jumping into the business wagon initially, they should understand the concern. They should understand the issue, and they try to address that, then if they really feel that there's business, or they have a business opportunity out there, they can capitalize that. Nobody is refusing that.

Rather than focusing on numbers, they should focus more on the customer support service.

I don't think the company had a prior solution. Our IT stack has been matured from 2015 onwards. Gradually it's getting scaling up. In 2015 our company used to work on spreadsheets. IT stack was being set up in 2015. In 2016, we censored all our spreadsheets and all those things, and we brought Salesforce into our company so that all the call centers on the branch associates who disperse the loans, who grant and pursue the loans have been using that. Once the Salesforce has been established, gradually we found that API as one of the most innovative thing.

We brought APIs. First, initially we did some Java-enabled APIs, but we found that it was going to be consuming a lot of time and energy, so thought rather an API management product may be viable. We brought Mulesoft. I think somewhere around the beginning of 2017 we brought Mulesoft. 

Before joining the team, most of Mulesoft had already been initiated. But what I realized was that most of my colleagues and supervisors don't have the API experience. Secondly, even though they have the experience, Mulesoft gives a lot of tutorials on their website, but most of them are not self-explanatory. They insist that customers find a Mulesoft expert, mostly because they seek the assistance from the Mulesoft consulting group to come on board and do some due diligence, and then you will hear, "Somebody will come and install it." That is what they have been doing over a period of time. I think that this process is still continuing. I don't think that's been stopped.

So, we had a challenge with configuring initially when we installed Mulesoft, but you really have to understand the concepts of Mulesoft, and if you follow the regulatory and follow the manual if you have a little bit of experience, I think it's not a big deal. You can configure Mulesoft very efficiently.

In terms of the implementation strategy, initially, we were blindly following whatever the Mulesoft consultants said. They had been talking about creating your architecture, and this is what was involved in the deployment methodology. For almost one and one and a half year, we have been following them. Lately, we've changed the strategy, and we've customized our deployment strategy. We merged with Kubernetes, Jenkins, and we have JIRA inside our organization.

To make our customization comply with Docker and Kubernetes, it took some amount of time, but it consumes a bit amount of time to configure all these items within the Mulesoft and run it. It took around three to four months of time to complete this exercise because we struggled with the documents. They're not as explanatory as they should be. Also, whenever we tried to reach out the Mulesoft, they said that they would come out and they would do it, and they would do some consulting. But they would charge more. To avoid extra cost, we did our own exercise, and frankly speaking, the tutorials are not self-explanatory. The majority of this Docker and Kubernetes is not as mature as it should be when compared with Apigee. Apigee is very fast. 

Going forward, we're going to migrate all of our applications to Azure. That has also hasn't been addressed yet. But the concern has already been raised. I don't know when they're going to address it. Yeah, these are the challenges. The tutorials, whatever they give, is not self-explanatory. It takes a lot of time to build any new initiative as far as Mulesoft is concerned.

We already have our full development center. The email team is there who've been supporting us. We have an internal workforce in there we've been doing. Along with me, there are two more architects who report to me. They do their job, and one dedicated Mulesoft integration architect, I can say the solution architect, but she supports the Mulesoft activities. The Mulesoft delivery manager is there. They're checking this challenge. They're accepting this challenge, and we're looking all those things.

We had help with implementation by Mulesoft.

I cannot give you any figures because frankly speaking we never measured anything, but I can say that it has made a significant contribution. 

I'm unsure about licensing costs because I'm not the person who handles this. But, ballpark, it's probably somewhere around $300,000-$400,000 or something like that.

There are a lot of products available on the market. Mulesoft is very good. It's an amazing product, no doubt about it. There's quality in the standard version, and the acumen and the technology are very good. What I want to tell them is before going for Mulesoft to consider Apigee. There are a couple of open-sources out there. What I would suggest is to not go blindly with the product stack. If you want to use the APIs, understanding of APIs are must because no company is independent. They have to do business with other companies. API is one of the most standard and robust methodologies to communicate with other business and do the business for the day to day transactions. And API is one of the most friendly approaches.

In this juncture, before going with an API management solution, understand whether you can create your own in-house APIs and see if you can leverage on that based on for the timelines and the costs. Then you can examine your goals because not every company is the same. Product due diligence is must especially when you do business with huge numbers of customers. For those kinds of numbers, you have to do an aggressive and some scale due diligence before going for the product.

My suggestion is to do due diligence and find the registered products, which are capable, and customizable for your requirements. Then you go with that product. As far as Mulesoft is concerned, yes, most of the small-scale and medium-scale customers, yes, it is one of the best tools. But when you scale up for large-scale customers, it has got those capabilities, but the Mulesoft team is not addressing those capabilities.

With Apigee, they address the concern and they go after a solution, and have a different approach, whereas, with Mulesoft, they insist the customers follow their methodology, which may or may not be suitable for all the lines of businesses. But when you come to the Apigee, they tailor to vendors, they customize themselves and act as the business owner, and they make for the business one of the best solutions. That's the difference.

However, I'm sure that what Apigee can do, Mulesoft can do better. But they have to address these concerns. To address these concerns, they should publish more articles, and the tutorials should be updated. The tutorials and the knowledge base should be updated thoroughly, and it should be made available for all the customers, as well as new learners.

Generally, they can make their product more sellable. It should not be hidden. I feel that is one of the challenges they have been facing, and they're not addressing that over a period of time.

I would rate this solution at 8 or 8.5 out of 10.

Functional:  Integrate Supply Chain automation; Financial System integrations

Technical: Expose API's to Trading Partners

It's provided a complete and architecturally sound solution for building publicly facing API's that can be consumed and invoked by client-side devices, such as mobile. Calling APIs from JavaScript sounds easy, but it must be secure and performance driven. Mulesoft allows for that.

Integrating cloud to cloud or SaaS to on premise has its considerations, and Mulesoft improves the development, design, and implementation of integrating federated systems and datastores across clouds, networks, and domains.

• Ability to create and test API "microservices" using RAML
• Develop policies that can be applied and re-used across API's and trading partners
• Strong security and integration to identity providers to protect public facing APIs
• Intuitive development tools based on fundamental computer science concepts, drag/drop
• Simple cloud and hybrid cloud deployment models. Good security by putting each application onto a separate VM in the cloud.
• Large set of connectors
• Innovative concept with "Connector Marketplace" which is similar to Salesforce.
• Solid integration with DevOps and continuous integration tools.
• Good build for its transformation, translation, and orchestration features. For example, visual mapping, an IDE for building visual flows, drag and drop connectors and templates.

• Mulesoft doesn't provide a complete stack. For example, it doesn't have BPM/Workflow, BAM, or Identity Management products.
• The User Interfaces on the Mulesoft tools aren't as nice as some of it's competitors.
• Improved business level analytics is currently on the roadmap.
• We created a framework for transaction management since one is not provided out of the box.

There have been no stability issues.

Good scalability in AWS/EC2.

Customer Service:

10/10 - They have a very strong customer success and professional services team.

Technical Support:

9/10 - They're very quick to help with tickets and deploy fixes.

I have used Software AG webMethods and Oracle SOA Suite at other customers, but none have switched.

I've implemented it both ways. Their vendor team is 10/10 for their RapidStart program to help customer with their initial use cases.

Consider cloud vs. on-premise. Have a good vision of your medium term needs so you can plan for growth. Develop an API/integration roadmap

For API we looked at Apigee, Axway, Mashery, and CA Layer 7.

For ESB/SOA we looked at SAG webMethods, and IBM.

Our approach is to know your use cases (through workshops), and map them back to vendor capabilities to scorecard the platforms.

The product is very lightweight and easy to setup, build and deploy APIs.

As a B2B2C company, our goal is to provide a clean interface to our systems. With Anypoint API Manager we have been able to quickly develop a standard API gateway. Plus, we developed a custom API solution for our key client by reusing most of the components.

Load balancing may be an area of improvement.

Two years.

No issues.

No.

No.

Good level, they respond quickly and escalate as well if needed.

Technical support is part of Mulesoft professional services, so it's not included in the solution.

No, setup has been easy, we setup a whole stack dev to production within a business day.

We implemented it in-house.

It's a per core pricing, maybe if your number of cores raise up quickly prices can escalate.

Apache Camel and TIBCO. TIBCO was much more expensive than Mulesoft and not so easy to configure. Apache Camel lacked of web management console.

We use the product to integrate different systems in our organization. 

The product improved data exchange processes by enhancing communication between various messaging queues. There was a heavy reliance on queues for indexing clusters and data transfer in this particular environment. The product facilitated the transfer of messages from one queue to another, ensuring data flow and processing across different topics.

We have issues with the tool's pricing. The product seemed to have most of the features required for the tasks I was working on. I didn't feel the need for additional features. However, one aspect that could be improved is making the platform more user-friendly for non-technical users. While it's not necessarily complex, it does require some familiarity. Unlike open-source tools available online, accessing and using this product may not be as straightforward. It needs to offer training to its users. 

MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager's deployment is easy. They had already completed the implementation when I got involved. My role was more about ensuring that everything was functioning properly. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.