Likelihood to Recommend If you are truly using IBM API Management for an API gateway, you will be ok. if you start trying to build custom scripts to transform messages complex in nature, it will soon become unmanageable.
Read full review Cloud Elements shines when you want to offer multiple options to the user on a type of system, such as supporting integration to CRM and wanting to offer Dynamics, Salesforce, and HubSpot on equal footing. If you only have a single integration with a single system, using Cloud Elements adds an unnecessary layer of abstraction.
Read full review Pros Import APIs - We have an existing inventory of APIs and services, so having an easy import process was required. IBM provides the ability to import Swagger so the process was quick and easy. Service Offerings - Can create plans to control various model offerings for varying clients depending on the need. You are not locked into a tier structure and can customize if a need arises. API Usage - visibility into the use of an API with a wealth of reporting information allows you to support an API from a production use to trending and forecasting any future growth. Read full review The API itself is very robust and easy to use, being a standard REST interface, standard HTTP response codes, well-packaged error messages, etc. Their uptime is great! I think I've seen one (short) 5-minute' blip' the entire time we've been connected for any type of primary function. Their support is top notch, they respond quickly, and the team that works with you is communicative and knowledgable. Read full review Cons Troubleshooting deployment pipeline - identifying issues with your api based on restrictions through a deployment pipeline is difficult. If a quality assurance environment is less stringent than a production environment, making sure your api is accessible and configured appropriately is tough. Code level scripting is limited to javascript and xslt. so if any complex fanning needs to occur, you are limited in tooling. Administration is more cumbersome than it needs to be. There are roles/profiles that are defined, but to use a group email for the approval or use of an api needs to managed better. A more thorough thought process needs to be defined - which I think IBM is tackling as an improvement. Read full review The only thing I can think of that they could improve is the quality of the assets they produce in the go-to-market process. This is a huge value add service, but the quality of what was produced was lower than what we would have produced internally. We spent more time going back and forth on the assets than it would have taken us to build them from scratch. Read full review Alternatives Considered There are a lot of similarities between
Apigee Edge and IBM API Management. Some of the differences at the time of this posting is... 1) IBM APIM/C integrates better with other products. Dynatrace is used to track API and service specifics with the ability to offload those statistics for operational reporting. 2) If you are evolving from DataPower, IBM API Management is a logical choice to support additional REST APIs. 3) Generating keys is simple. Integration of those keys with a secure data vault is easy as well for your consumer.
Read full review At the time we found Cloud Elements we found no other option that had a Unified API for cloud storage providers.
Read full review Return on Investment Centralizing on an API management platform was imperative. Being able to support SOAP UIs as well as REST APIs was required. Because of the tooling, service inventory and provisioning can be managed - regardless of the pricing and cost structures are used. Constructing plans that provide tiering options based on rate limits help in onboarding new consumers. The lesser cost in onboarding through an API gateway outweighs the cost of modifying/configuring an API to handle multiple clients. Defining guidance and onboarding practices while rolling out the product also helps in the adoption, reference architecture, and governance that can save your company money. Read full review Not my area of expertise, but it made my job as an implementer much easier, especially after finishing the first integration. Read full review ScreenShots