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IBM API Connect vs SwaggerHub comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)
SwaggerHub
Ranking in API Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.4%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.4%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Quite flexible and provides excellent performance for API gateway
The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support, which can be considered quite expensive. In terms of new functionality, I think the analytics can be improved in V10. The analytics feature was better in the older version, 2.18. But in V10, it's not as flexible. When exporting analytics as KSP or JSON, it's not well formatted. They can work on enhancing the analytics part. Additionally, they can focus on reducing the hardware cost.
SwaminathanSubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitating enterprise-wide API governance and management
Some areas of SwaggerHub that could be improved include the interface between the code editor and the visual editor, the integration with private APIs, which currently requires an upgraded account. The scalability also needs enhancement, as it becomes flaky under increased load. Additionally, the versioning management could be improved to be on par with source code management tools.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"DataPower Gateway holds significant value for us as it serves as the cornerstone of our enterprise security controls."
"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"WSRR is a powerful component for getting the endpoints."
"The solution provides a common place for all APIs, allowing for easy sharing and exchange of information between internal and external stakeholders."
"The gateway is the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."
"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."
"It is a stable solution."
"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy and not at all difficult."
"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."
"The scalability is endless."
"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."
 

Cons

"We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"Understanding the architecture, deployment criteria, and communication methods of the installation can be time-consuming."
"Components, like caching, should be implemented as policies, not requiring dependency on an external solution."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"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."
"The initial setup and installation could be easier."
"Our main pain points are in these two areas: creating a better developer portal and improving stability in terms of synchronization and monetization."
"SwaggerHub's UI needs to be improved as it looks very old school."
"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."
"More integration and usability with the cloud microservices would be nice"
"SwaggerHub could be improved with better integration for tools."
"We have to use additional tools to test APIs."
"The scalability aspect of SwaggerHub can be improved. It becomes a bit unreliable when the load is increased and isn't up to par with expectations for scalability."
"The review process should be improved. There seem to be some gaps, at least for us, for the editing part because we would like to have a full request review mechanism. They support some comments, but it is really hard to manage those comments. We would like to use the full request. Therefore, we are now looking to integrate with repositories. It has integration with Bitbucket and GitHub, but we have some internal constraints, and we need to move some of the repositories to GitHub. Our source code is on-premise in Bitbucket, and it was a bit of a problem for us to integrate. Now we are transitioning our repositories to GitHub, and hopefully, we can enable the integration. This will probably solve the problem with the review and approval. Its customization should also be improved. There are limitations around the support for the developer portal. There should be more customization options for the website that you can use as a developer portal. Currently, it has only Swagger UI with minimal customization. You cannot actually add additional pages and documentation for explaining concepts and general things. That's why we have started to look around to see what other tools are doing. They should also allow tagging on the API. We would like to add some tagging on the API to reflect certain things. Currently, any metadata that you would like to have has to be a part of the spec. You cannot do anything else. It should also have support for Open API 3.1, which was released at the beginning of the year. It would be great to be able to switch to that."
"It has limited functionality...Unfortunately, some of its features are not what we need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for the IBM API Connect monthly. We only need to pay the standard licensing fee."
"API Connect is quite pricey."
"It is an expensive solution. The licensing model is based on a per-subscription and per-subscriber end-user basis, meaning the price is determined by the end-users of the platform."
"It is a pretty expensive tool."
"This is a licensed product. If your company is looking to obtain a license, you have to work with IBM partners."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"It's an expensive product."
"The price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."
"The tool is cheap."
"It has a yearly subscription, but I am not sure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments. I don't deal with licensing, but compared to other IBM products, the licensing is not significantly higher.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ ( /categories/message-queue-mq...
What do you like most about SwaggerHub?
The tool's most valuable feature is licensing.
What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?
Some areas of SwaggerHub that could be improved include the interface between the code editor and the visual editor, the integration with private APIs, which currently requires an upgraded account....
What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?
I started using SwaggerHub in its previous version, SmartMiner, with a tool called SoapUI. I used it to create mock web services to test web services and create test scripts and mock APIs. This usa...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. SwaggerHub and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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