ESB vs iPaaS: What's the difference?

Integration Platform as a Service versus Enterprise Service Bus solutions

More than 2.5 quintillion JSON and XML files are created every day. Companies are currently under enormous pressure to find the best and fastest path to digitize their business using APIs and cloud integration to gain digital success. Without a way to monitor, manage, and process this enormous amount of XML and JSON files, it's almost impossible to use and find value from this information. Enter API, iPaaS, and data management tools.

Only there's one problem. The sheer amount of different API and data management and integration solutions make it difficult to decide which applications and platforms are suited for your business. The iPaaS is built to provide companies with a no-code integration solution suitable for adjustable and real-time SaaS applications. This remains important for cloud-based integration solutions because of ease of use and the ability to change software with compromise. Yet, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), as well as iPaaS solutions, integrate complex IT systems and architecture. It holds together on-premise and legacy systems, but it's hard to change and manage your data.

iPaaS vs. ESB: four key differences
Modern companies rely on iPaaS and/or ESB integration solutions to control and manage their data. There are four things to keep in mind when knowing the differences between an ESB platform and an iPaaS integration solution: application integration, scalability, multi-tenancy, and data governance.

Application Integration
Enterprise Service Bus solutions are recognized for their strength to handle different complex tasks within on-premise- or legacy systems. But you can't count on ESBs to control and manage various applications and data when you want to be flexible or want to have a low-cost solution. They lack the flexibility to support cloud integration solutions without compromise and are not used without in-depth knowledge of the software. Alumio iPaaS is a no-code integration framework that is cost-interesting and moves between your source and target applications such as eCommerce, PIM, MDM, WMS, OMS, AI, and marketing automation software, using pre-built integration plug-ins. Your applications can both take in and push data out to flow from the source endpoints to the target endpoint.

Scalability
Digital commerce is moving fast. Businesses must keep up with cloud-based applications, and integration solutions need to be flexible to meet modern SaaS applications fast demand for data. When it comes to usability, scalability, and flexibility, ESB and iPaaS vary in their capability to provide scalable solutions. An ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) can be counted on for vertical scaling within an existing architecture, which means that an ESB can expand existing compute resources such as power, capacity, or speed. iPaaS can do both. It can scale vertically but is even better in horizontal scaling, which usually means you can easily add new applications or change applications within the existing IT-landscape.

Single or multi-tenant integration environments
We recommend customers with a turnover 50MIO+ to choose for a single-tenancy integration solution. This contrasts with multi-tenancy, an architecture where a single instance of an integration solution serves multiple customers. In a multi-tenant architecture, each customer shares the same database and application. Alumio iPaaS is based on single-tenant hosting for customers with a higher turnover than 50MIO+ a year (on- and offline turnover)

Data governance
The ability to secure and govern data is another crucial difference between ESB and iPaaS. Alumio iPaaS is quipped with a more effective governance capability than an ESB, including mechanisms and a dashboard to measure data quality, data profiling, and metadata management. Alumio iPaaS provides all of those and is GDPR compliant.
ESB solutions often include data governance features. However, compared to iPaaS integration solution capabilities, ESBs lack features, and more robust data governance capabilities are found in iPaaS solutions. This is because iPaaS solutions are designed to integrate data from various systems while accounting for schema and other data modeling considerations. As a result, Alumio iPaaS data governance features are more comprehensive than those of ESB.

"Alumio iPaaS: an integration platform ready for future growth."

We recommend iPaaS when you want to add new cloud-based software such as eCommerce, marketing automation, AI, machine learning, PIM, WMS, DMP, MDP, etcetera. Alumio's integration solution offers a no-code interface so that you can build integrations yourself. The pre-built integration templates help you kickstart the project.