Today's technology and business professionals have several options when it comes to integrating their application data to other applications. But choosing the right solution can be a daunting task - Biztalk, Boomi, Mulesoft, Snaplogic, TIBCO, and more - where do you start? Adeptia is here to help - check out our detailed comparison of the most popular integration software vendors currently in the market.
Comparison Matrix of Application Integration Software Vendors
| Features | Adeptia | IBM, TIBCO,
WebMethods | Axway | BizTalk | Mulesoft | Snaplogic | Boomi | Jitterbit |
|---|
| Application Integration Use Cases | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Data Integration Use Cases | Y | | | | | | Y | |
| B2B Integration Use Cases | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | Y | |
| API Enablement Use Cases | Y | Y | Y | | Y | | Y | Y |
| Cloud Integration Use Cases | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Citizen Integrator Use Cases | Y | | | | | Y | Y | Y |
| Easy to Use/Code Free | Y | | | | | Y | Y | Y |
| Citizen Integrator UI | Y | | | | | Y | Y | Y |
| Web-Browser Design Studio | Y | | | | | Y | Y | |
| Multi-Role Team Collaboration | Y | Y | | | | Y | Y | |
| Graphical Process Orchestration | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Process Centric Approach | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Enables SOA | Y | Y | Y | | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Reusable Services Repository | Y | Y | | | | | | |
| Single-install, Light Footprint | Y | | | | | Y | Y | |
| Bulk Data Handling | Y | Y | | Y | | | Y | |
| Clustering and Job Distribution | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Job Queue Processor to Smooth Loads |
| Y | Y | | Y | Y | | Y | |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | | |
| Automatic Recovery of Flows |
| Y | Y | | Y | | | | |
| XA-Transaction Commit/Rollbacks |
| Y | Y | | Y | | | | |
| Meta-Driven, not Code Generation |
| Y | | | | | Y | Y | |
| Complex Flows (Fork/Join etc.) |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | | Y | | | | |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Message Queues (JMS etc.) |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| B2B Standards - EDI X12, Others |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | Y | Y |
| HIPAA Validations - 7 Levels |
| Y | Y | Y | | | | | |
| Trading Partner Management |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | | |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Publish Flows as Web Services |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| APIs - Create, Publish, Manage |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | | | | Y |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | | | | |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Data Validations & Quality |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | | | Y | Y |
| Preview Source Data In-Design |
|
| Y | Y | Y | | | | Y | Y |
| Run Mapping Rules In-Design |
|
| Y | Y | Y | | | | Y | Y |
| Library of Reusable Mapping Functions |
|
| Y | Y | Y | | | | Y | Y |
| Complex Lookups in Mappings |
|
| Y | Y | Y | Y | | | Y | Y |
| Auto-Generate Documentation |
|
| Y | Y | | | | | | |
| Human Workflow for Error Handling |
|
| Y | Y | | Y | | | | |
| Y | Y | | | | | | |
| Y | | | | | | | |
| Plug-in External Programs |
|
| Y | Y | | | Y | | Y | |
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Rich Logging and Tracking |
|
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Y | Y | | Y | | | | |
| Y | | | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Deploy only On-Premises Option |
|
| Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | | | |
| One-time Perpetual Price Option |
|
| Y | Y | Y | Y | | | | |
| Subscription Price Option |
|
| Y | | | | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Note: The content in this comparison matrix has been collected by reviewing publicly available information. Some of the products may have newer versions with updated features. If you have information to help us correct and update the data in this table, please send us an email at marketing@adeptia.com
Traditional Integration Competitors
IBM, Oracle, TIBCO, WebMethods (Software AG) and Microsoft BizTalk are examples of enterprise integration solutions that have extensive background and experience in the integration market with their ability to scale performance and functionality in complex, heterogeneous environments. These products provide comprehensive features and functionality and so require extensive training to use effectively.
The core technology of these solutions was typically developed from scratch back in 1990s and later and was refined over time to provide rich functionality and highly robust and reliable performance. So, they are perceived to be based on older technologies that have often not been updated in recent years. Most of these products started out as Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) solutions, grew into Integration Suites and now are moving into the process-centric integration space.
Axway and IBM Sterling Commerce are other products that fall in this category although they started off as a Business to Business (B2B) integration products focused on supply chain and partner integration and still remain best suited for those situations.
These solutions are typically characterized by:
- Complex and high volume scenarios in large organizations where they form basis of enterprise-wide integration strategy
- Heavy, large footprint deployments that require many weeks to simply install and configure correctly
- Long duration projects, typically 9-18 months, with large cross-functional teams
- Designed for use by seasoned developers and architects
- Extensive training and certifications required to use these products, typically multiple weeks
- Large implementation teams of expensive consultants and specialists to architect integration solutions
- On-premises deployment, typically no cloud option
- Expensive perpetual-only licensing fees, typically no subscription pricing option
- Expensive ongoing support and maintenance contracts
Considering the cost and the effort required in implementing these solutions, they are typically best suited for large, complex, enterprise-wide process and application integration scenarios in Fortune 1000 organizations.
Newer Integration Alternatives
Mulesoft, Snaplogic, Boomi and Jitterbit are examples of newer companies that have offered their products in the last 5 to 8 years. Their premise is to leverage newer technologies and frameworks to offer simpler yet rich-enough and robust-enough products that are best suited for quicker and smaller integration projects. These are attractive for companies and IT teams that are trying to solve specific, simpler integration problems such as “Connect my ERP to Salesforce", or “Import Orders in Excel from my customers into my orders database" and so on.
These companies have technologies that rely heavily on open source components and they add a front-end and management layer user interface on top of these components. Here are some typical open source components that form the engine of these solutions:
Reliance on these open source components, which are developed by community of contributors, limits the flexibility of these vendors because they are not able to make changes and quickly add new features that are more urgently requested by customers.
Although some of them may state to the contrary, these products are really developer tools that are designed for use by programmers and IT staff. However they are easier to use than the traditional integration products but they still require Java skills and the Eclipse developer environment. Only Boomi and Snaplogic have created a browser based design studio but they also need developer skill sets to create integration flows.
These solutions are typically characterized by:
- Simpler scenarios where they are utilized on a per-project basis
- Lighter footprint deployments that still require installation of multiple components separately
- Shorter duration projects, typically weeks to months, with IT teams
- Designed for use by junior developers who require few days of training
- Implementations require consultants and specialists to architect integration solutions
- Both on-premises and cloud deployment options
- Subscription pricing option only. Expensive 5-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). No perpetual-only licensing option.
- Typical approach is to attract users with free open source option and then up-sell paid software and technical support contracts
Where does Adeptia fit in?
Adeptia is a proven and reliable integration software that is targeted to the mid-market and large enterprises that need a flexible, easy-to-use solution for typical integration requirements. It is designed to build integration flows very quickly by reusing existing components. It is ideal for creating and centrally managing data flows from within one solution, rather than writing ad-hoc programs and scripts. This product is well suited not just for a client’s immediate, specific requirements but is designed to become an “enterprise-wide integration platform” where all the data flows and integration touch points are exposed as services for reuse by other applications and systems. Adeptia bridges the gap between ETL and traditional data integration on one side and enterprise-wide ESB integration and B2B connectivity on the other.
Adeptia has been recognized as a “visionary” product in Gartner’s Application Integration Magic Quadrant. It has also been included in Forrester’s Hybrid Integration Wave and Gartner’s Data Integration Magic Quadrant. Hundreds of companies of all sizes use Adeptia to solve their mission-critical integration needs.
Although there are a lot of integration solutions in the market, we believe that no other product really addresses the needs of the majority of the customers. There exists an “Integration Tool Dilemma” in the minds of customers who are wary of the choice of either investing in a niche integration product that just does one thing well or over-investing in a big enterprise-wide integration solution. Customers want to start small to solve an immediate problem but want to know that they have the solution that can scale to meet other needs in the future. Adeptia provides exactly that.
Adeptia provides rich functionality at a fraction of the cost of comparative solutions. This may seem as an incredible value given all the functionality that is available in this product as shown in the table above. But this is true, and we welcome you to validate this for yourself.
Adeptia has been in business for 15+ years and it provides its product for free 30-day trial and also all the technical documentation, as well as training videos and support forum are available online.
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Adeptia vs Mulesoft
A number of our customers and prospects ask us - How does Adeptia compare with Mulesoft? So, we thought we should just post this information here to make it easily accessible by everyone.
Here are features and capabilities that differentiate Adeptia from Mulesoft and other similar technologies:
- Support for Citizen Integrators: Adeptia was designed from day one to be used collaboratively by both business analysts and IT staff. Although every product claims to be easy-to-use, we believe Adeptia truly takes it much further.
- Meta-driven approach, not code generation: Adeptia takes the state-of-the-art meta-driven approach to creation and deployment of process flows. Basically, the process flow that is deployed is an XML le and at run-time the execution occurs based on activity rules that are read by the process engine from the services repository. This provides all the benefits of services/object-oriented approach of abstraction, inheritance, etc. as well as allows process flows to be dynamic such that different and new activities can be executed based on content and context of the process data. This also makes changes to the process flow and rules much easier to deploy. On the other hand, MuleSoft takes a code-generation approach meaning that its design studio generates a static code package that is deployed on the run-time server. This approach is not so flexible, it does not support dynamic behavior and it requires extensive testing and redeployment when changes are needed.
- Browser-based design studio: Adeptia’s design studio is fully web-based, which is unique and does not require installation and maintenance of another piece of software. Like most other products, MuleSoft has an Eclipse based developer environment that means only developers can use it and a copy of everything stays on a user’s computer, which is a risk when working with consultants and temporary workers.
- Collaborative environment with central repository: Adeptia provides a collaborative environment where multiple users can work during design time and also a central repository where all integration objects and artifacts are saved and managed allowing greater reusability.
- Human workflow: Adeptia provides support for human workflow, task management and escalation. This allows Adeptia to handle not just system-to-system flows but also system-to-human flows where business users may need to interact with running processes to make decisions, review documents or handle errors and exceptions. This is a MUST HAVE feature for the most common integration scenarios that we see in the market.
- Process Engine: Adeptia takes a process-centric approach to integration and this is facilitated by a full-fledged process engine in the product.
This supports design and execution of flexible process flows that include content-based routing, extensibility by plugging in external programs, alerts, and notifications, etc. Adeptia’s process engine supports maintenance of state, long-running transactions, XA-compliant transactional commit- rollbacks, sub-processes and automatic job recovery on server failure — these are all mission-critical, enterprise class features.
- Comprehensive, Single Platform: Adeptia is unique in the integration space that it provides one platform for multiple types of integration scenarios such as Application/ESB, ETL, B2B, Cloud and BPM.
- Flexible pricing model – Adeptia provides option of purchasing the software either via one-time perpetual fees or recurring subscription fees. The customer can choose what suits them better.
Please also see our comparison of Data Integration software vendors.
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We found Adeptia Integration technology as a best fit for our strategy of centrally managing all our Multiple Listing Service (MLS) interfaces within one solution. Adeptia solution is attractively priced, is easy to manage and provides outstanding value.