Are you considering an iPaaS? Follow along as we compare two popular, distinct frameworks, and come to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
What is MuleSoft?
MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce in 2018) is an integration platform (iPaaS) and API management platform. It enables companies to link data, apps, etc., and develop, manage, and test the APIs that support these connections.
MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform includes the following tools and services:
- API Designer is a web-based, graphical tool for developers to define, document, and share APIs. Specific API components, such as security schema, are also made reusable.
- API Manager is an interface that allows developers to manage APIs and secure them using an API gateway. You can create a secure channel to back-end data sources and define restrictions surrounding API calls.
- Anypoint Studio is a visual, Java-based design environment for deploying APIs to both on-premises and cloud settings. Studio also has tools for mapping, building, editing, and debugging data integrations.
- Anypoint Connectors are a group of built-in connectors that allow developers to link their applications to hundreds of third-party REST and SOAP services.
- Anypoint Analytics allows you to generate custom graphs and dashboards to visualize API performance and pinpoint the source of any performance issues.
What is Boomi?
Boomi is an iPaaS and API management solution that can perform a variety of integrations with its visual UI and low-code platform. It has intelligent features like smart mapping and recommendation services, making integration easier.
Boomi’s Atmosphere Platform includes the following tools and services:
- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) allows you to take data from one form, convert it to the necessary type, and then transfer it into a different application or database.
- Master Data Hub serves as the centralized data hub for your entire company. All your company's data can be analyzed in one place, enabling you to break down departmental silos.
- B2B/EDI Management allows you to substitute your existing EDI solution because it supports all types of trading partner connections and even allows you to build custom standards.
- API Management allows you to design and deploy bespoke APIs swiftly. It goes hand in hand with the ETL tool.
Who should you choose and why?
✋ Most important consideration
- MuleSoft is a comprehensive platform that can cater to many integration use cases but can be overkill for small to mid-sized organizations and expensive for large configurations. Boomi is comparatively less complicated and cost-effective for many similar use cases.
🤔 Strongly consider Boomi over MuleSoft if
- You’re building for ETL-based use cases focusing on data integration scenarios.
- You have B2B integration scenarios involving processing B2B/EDI file formats like EDIFACT and ANSI X.12.
- You want to build event-driven integrations using messaging protocols like AMQP, MQTT, etc.
🤔 Strongly consider MuleSoft over Boomi if
- You’re building integrations with an API-first approach to support API initiatives in your organization.
- You have a large team of software engineers who want to work with developer-friendly tools that allow them to code integrations in familiar languages like Java, Ruby, or Python.
📝 Other Notes
- Boomi and MuleSoft have error-handling features, but Boomi does not have built-in error notifications.
- MuleSoft does not have tooling for automated testing of your integration flow.
MuleSoft vs. Boomi Frameworks
MuleSoft and Boomi are based on entirely distinct frameworks:
- MuleSoft communicates through APIs.
- Boomi is widely used in typical ETL and B2B integrations.
Although Boomi also does API communications, and MuleSoft does ETL and B2B integrations, they’re not their strong suits.
MuleSoft makes developing and reusing various components repetitively possible, allowing you to easily create multiple editions of a coherent system and offer it to other apps.
Boomi exclusively offers on-premise and on-cloud implementations, whereas MuleSoft offers its service for on-premise, on-cloud, and mixed integration solutions, making it the more adaptable platform.
MuleSoft vs. Boomi Pricing
Regarding pricing, MuleSoft varies greatly from Boomi:
- MuleSoft’s cost is driven by the volume of records processed, whereas Boomi’s is driven by API endpoints.
- Boomi will charge you per endpoint or connection, which implies that every app, and every link, has at least two endpoints for which you must pay.
- MuleSoft, on the other hand, is unconcerned about how many links you have or what you're connecting to. What matters is the number of records you're processing through its central platform. You're purchasing processing capacity based on the number of transactions you perform.
- MuleSoft’s vCPU cost is very high compared to Boomi’s for organizations of all sizes.
- Boomi starts at $549 monthly, with annual plans also available.
MuleSoft vs. Boomi Feature Differences
Integration (iPaaS)
- As a Salesforce company, MuleSoft offers a variety of accelerators and pre-built integrations for Salesforce and other apps.
- Boomi provides a variety of prebuilt transformations called shapes.
- With Boomi, you can build custom preload transforms to transform source application formats to destination formats.
- About 300 connections to databases, storage infrastructure, network services, and SaaS systems are supported by MuleSoft, whereas Boomi has only 140.
API Manager
- MuleSoft's API manager allows you to track what's occurring in the API network in real-time, like which messages are being processed and where.
- While in Boomi, you only get information in one form, a list view, making it challenging to figure out what information source your APIs are using.
Tooling
- Boomi provides a faster build time and lowers maintenance risk.
- For complex and diverse code-based solutions, MuleSoft requires high competency.
- Boomi’s online training system is not very user-friendly.
- The MuleSoft framework comes with the ETL tools you'll need to connect to data sources, extract and process data, and send it across multiple channels. However, MuleSoft’s ETL capabilities are inferior to Boomi’s.
Versioning
- Boomi has built-in version control, whereas MuleSoft has a runtime engine available in six different versions.
- Boomi provides a full table database replica, whereas MuleSoft requires you to write SELECT statements manually.
User-friendliness
- MuleSoft connects and exposes assets through APIs, which improves the user experience and eliminates the need for custom code integration. This saves time during integration design and makes production settings easier to use.
- MuleSoft is more user-friendly than Boomi. As Boomi’s platform ages, user-friendliness hasn’t caught up much.
"Gotchas"
- Boomi's processes occasionally hang wherein the system stops responding to inputs.
- Boomi’s ETL has problems when running each record separately, especially when working with larger record counts.
- With MuleSoft, smart data management and intelligent mappings are not available. As a result, leveraging AI and ML is challenging.
Conclusion
MuleSoft and Boomi have a lot in common, especially regarding integration options. However, if the price is something you don’t object to, MuleSoft is generally the better data integration option for use by programmers. Boomi, however, will take longer to create, learn, and incorporate into your business.
