Microsoft BizTalk Server vs. SnapLogic

BizTalk is well suited as middleware. Where you wish to translate an input file into an output file and send it to some endpoint. In our case, we used it to convert and send files to SAP. In many ways, it very flexible, and you can do almost anything you want with it. In many ways, it's a better solution than your SAP XI or PI as middleware, since it's much less expensive, and allows you do interface with non-SAP systems.

Incentivized

Snaplogic is unique from other IPASS tools if you're very sensitive about data security as they have an on-premise option where your data never needs to leave your data center. And data pipelines can be quickly created if Snaplogic has the requisite connector to your data sources. On the downside, if you're transforming a large amount of data for example in training machine learning models, a tool with elastic compute capability is more appropriate.

• It is very user friendly. Users can change rules during run time and change workflow.
• Huge capacity for queueing messages. It supports all types of adapters like Oracle, Salesforce, SMTP, FTP, etc. Also users can built custom adaptors.
• If users want to dynamically deploy their solution without any downtime, this is a perfect solution. BizTalk will be a good fit, especially for public-facing websites.
• Well-proven in the market. I used it when developing a website for Virgin Trains, catering more than 800K user requests per day.
• Helps in load balancing.

Incentivized

• Easy access to any type of source system. Data could be in any format.
• Very beautiful visual representation of transforms that makes it super easy to use it by any non developer.
• It can be run in cloud or on-premise. helping you choose your comfort of security.
• Has pretty good customer support and have recently started their community forum as well.

Incentivized

• Microsoft BizTalk is over engineered for some situtations
• Microsoft BizTalk can be frustrating to use as it forces you to use the GUI as opposed to code
• Microsoft BizTalk is very resource intensive to create integrations

Incentivized

• They need to have a way to connect to GitHub to allow the users to maintain their version control in GitHub. This is a missing functionality.
• As pipelines become complex, it's difficult to have all the snaps stitched together - just like to see it done differently.
• They do not have a way to start/stop a preview. This is hard to use, especially if you have to stop an accidental preview invocation.

Incentivized

BizTalk will always be required at this hospital.

Incentivized

This has been hands down the BEST software company I have ever used and dealt with. I am a 25 year IT veteran at this college. They go above and beyond in soliciting our feedback/input and proactively follow up about bugs, issues, etc. I have given multiple potential clients my thoughts and after seeing the SL demo they all sign up. I appreciate their support model, it's REFRESHING!

Incentivized

I gave a 7 because this product BizTalk does need time and training to get familiar with the usability and features, it is not that easy to use.

Incentivized

It is very powerful but has a steep learning curve

Incentivized

BizTalk Server has been supported for more than 15 years. It is well proven in the market. Microsoft has provided excellent support with technical issues.

Incentivized

They can be prompt but they have not been as useful as I've wanted. We had a bug that affected many of our customers through an API connection between SnapLogic and our platform. Eventually they were able to figure it out, but it took a long time of negotiating between our engineering team and theirs. Additionally, we installed the SnapLogic groundplex for our customers and we've run into a bunch of problems of connectivity. If SnapLogic offered to be on those calls with our clients to troubleshoot how to fix these problems, I would give them a better grade here.

Incentivized

Make sure you have everybody and all depts. On board during testing on test server.

Incentivized

The groundplex in our VPC is very nice for security reasons and the SnapLogic team was extremely helpful during our implementation

Incentivized

BizTalk was selected here mainly because it is easy to integrate to a .NET application (most of them are Web Service, WCF SOAP, WCF REST and Web API) and many backend databases are Microsoft SQL Server. Another benefit is that the monitoring job is easy to set up and centralize with other .NET application monitoring jobs.

Incentivized

We opted for SnapLogic due its ease of use and the flexibility it offers, it was the platform that was strongest in both application integration and data integration and both were use cases we wanted to be able to cover.

• A positive impact has been the quicker turnaround time of a part request and that part showing up in SAP using Biztalk as middleware.
• A somewhat negative impact has been the somewhat insufficient error logging/message capture settings that Biztalk provide. This has caused occasional delays when attempted to create parts for the business.
• A somewhat negative impact has been the need to have a specialized developer who understands Biztalk to troubleshoot issues with the Biztalk and SAP interaction when creating parts, and when adding new fields to the parts.

Incentivized

• We have cut development time down by at least 70%
• The software was more on the expensive side at renewal which required some further approvals to be sought for the spend
• More developers are able to build and use Snaplogic pipelines in their projects

Incentivized