

IBM DataPower Gateway and IBM API Connect both compete in the enterprise security and API management markets. DataPower Gateway has an edge in security capabilities due to its robust appliance-based features, while API Connect stands out with its extensive API management functionality and flexibility.
Features: IBM DataPower Gateway is valued for its robust security features, ability to integrate multiple protocols, and stable appliance-based architecture. It provides high-speed transaction processing, remote administration via API, and comprehensive security threats management with payload scanning. IBM API Connect excels in offering flexible API management tools, user-friendly interfaces for API lifecycle management, and extensive support for internal and external API consumers. It integrates well with various services, provides enhanced features for monitoring, and enables seamless DevOps integration.
Room for Improvement: Users find IBM DataPower Gateway's high pricing a barrier for smaller organizations and suggest enhancing support for diverse programming languages and improving interface usability. IBM API Connect users seek more flexible monetization options and better documentation, especially for hybrid cloud deployments. Both products could improve pricing models and make their offerings more accessible and streamlined for easier adoption by enterprises.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM DataPower Gateway is typically deployed on-premises, preferred for its secure environment setup, and users generally have a positive view of its deployment process. IBM API Connect offers deployment in both on-premises and hybrid cloud settings. Despite its flexibility, it faces criticism for complex setup processes. Customer service reviews for both are mixed, with technical support considered costly and response times varying by issue severity. Enhancing documentation and responsiveness of support teams could benefit both products.
Pricing and ROI: Both IBM DataPower Gateway and IBM API Connect are seen as expensive, with DataPower being notably costly for smaller firms. It is, however, justified by its comprehensive security benefits. API Connect, although pricey, is acknowledged for its robust API management capabilities. It offers various pricing tiers but is still considered high-cost, particularly for cloud deployments. Despite the initial investment, both products are perceived to offer good ROI for enterprises leveraging their extensive features.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
I have seen a return on investment from using IBM API Connect, as we created multiple plans based on customer usage.
I can provide some examples of return on investment by saying that we are running different APIs which we are using, and we are charging customers.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
Support is extremely good, especially with Sev 1 issues.
In terms of OEM support, it is poor.
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as a little bit weak, so I give it a seven out of ten.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
It is distributed among IBM MQ, IBM Ace, IBM DataPower, and IBM API Connect.
IBM API Connect's scalability is good, as you can handle it easily similar to how you manage cloud providers.
Once you install the product, we can't scale the resources on the IBM DataPower Gateway.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
If it is functioning well, you won't have a bad experience and your application becomes more reliable.
IBM DataPower Gateway does not handle all the traffic on a single node.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
You need to know when traffic peaks, so use auto-scaling when traffic comes.
Connectivity to MQ is not available in IBM API Connect.
Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can write the code in a few minutes or seconds.
However, from the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT language.
My experience with the pricing of this product is that pricing is too high and should be reduced.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
I think it costs around 5 Crore in Indian Rupees.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
We can add some policies to provide extra security, protect your backend, validate the consumers, and analyze based on the traffic limit to throw things out.
IBM API Connect has a designer and CLI features which can be used to completely automate the API.
No other Gateway offers this as part of the integration offering.
As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language.
IBM DataPower Gateway's multi-protocol transformation is important for my integration needs because all the API traffic is coming from this API data gateway.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| IBM API Connect | 5.7% |
| IBM DataPower Gateway | 3.5% |
| Other | 90.8% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 19 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 10 |
| Large Enterprise | 60 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 11 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 17 |
IBM API Connect is an API management tool providing robust security, seamless REST and SOAP conversion, and flexible deployment options for diverse cloud environments. It aids organizations in securing and monetizing their APIs while streamlining the development process.
IBM API Connect offers features like a security gateway, API lifecycle management, and integration with DataPower. Its intuitive interface enhances ease of use, supporting extensive analytics and traffic management. However, there are areas for improvement in automation, system integration, and user configuration. Organizations can deploy API Connect on-premises or in the cloud, delivering secure access control and analytics for banking, financial services, and government sectors. Compliance with standards like PSD2 ensures secure external API exposure and integration with multiple systems.
What are the most important features of IBM API Connect?In specific industries like banking, financial services, and government sectors, IBM API Connect plays a crucial role in API management, orchestration, and regulation tasks. It provides secure access, control, and compliance with industry standards, serving as an essential gateway for data exchange and integration across multiple systems.
IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.
DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.
IBM DataPower Gateway Features
IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:
IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits
IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:
Reviews from Real Users
“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion
“You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd
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