Discover the key features and differences between Boomi and MuleSoft integration platforms. Learn how Boomi's all-in-one platform and technical advancements make it the leading choice for businesses looking to automate their workforce and achieve seamless integration. Find out why Boomi is ranked high on the Magic Quadrant and explore implementation services with a trusted partner like VistaVu.
Many companies struggle with multiple databases, cloud services, legacy systems, and online or offline applications. Although each of these systems provides companies with valuable commercial insights and business support, these systems often aren’t integrated with each other which leads to data silos and general IT inefficiencies. This is why many companies are now focusing on integrating their on-premise systems or cloud applications to automate them in a seamlessly synchronized infrastructure.
Over the last few years, the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) market has grown and there are 2 leading technologies we’ll take a look at: Boomi and MuleSoft. The competition to be the number one integration service provider is fierce, and each company offers certain specific capabilities to address integration challenges.
MuleSoft offers companies next-gen integration platforms. Their platform works in hybrid environments linking all the enterprise apps that sit both in the cloud and on-premise. Their Anypoint Platform is not an integrated platform solution. Companies are required to purchase multiple products and components, which could include:
There are other components as well in the Anypoint Platform that may need to be considered, based on the scale and requirement of the projects.
Boomi is focused on becoming the first company to devise wholly ‘Connected Businesses’. Unlike Mulesoft, Boomi is an all-in-one platform. The main components for Boomi’s Atomsphere include:
Licensing is based on feature usage of the platform. So, which integration platform is best between Boomi and Mulesoft? Below, we’ll discuss how the 2 platforms compare to each other.
Boomi and Mulesoft have many similar features. In the following sections, we’ll look at how Boomi and Mulesoft compare in terms of cost, technical capabilities, API management, and platform features.
| Dell Boomi | MuleSoft | |
| Database replication | Full table | Incremental replication depends upon manually written SELECT statements |
| Pre-built SaaS Sources | ~80 | ~70 |
| Add new data sources? | Yes | Yes |
| Data warehouse connections | Yes | No |
| Data lake connections | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Monthly or annual | Annual only |
| Developer tools | AtomSphere API for programmatic control of the AtomSphere platform, Connector SDK for writing custom connectors | Runtime Manager REST API, CloudHub API |
| Versioning |
Built-in version control
|
6 different versions of a Runtime Engine |
| Coding | Low-code | Heavy coding required |
| Smart Data Mapping | Yes | No |
What do the market analysts have to say about these companies and their respective market leaderships in iPaaS? According to Gartner, Boomi has been leading the iPaaS market for six back to back years. The market was unsure how the MuleSoft acquisition by Salesforce in 2018 would impact the platform’s direction.
Mulesoft does well with Enterprise customers that have developer-centric internal teams and while they surged ahead and doubled their customer base in 2018, commercially, Boomi has a larger market presence serving over 10,000 customers globally. Boomi has a customer renewal rate that stands at a whopping 97%.
While it’s difficult to find TOC and ROI information on either platform, Forrester released a report in 2019 which details the ROI performance on a number of Boomi projects. Some saw over a 300% return on investment while others realized improved IT staff efficiency of over 70%.
Cloud-native Boomi is able to fast-track commercial outcomes with a clever, adaptable and scalable platform. Boomi is innately comfortable with all types of cloud-based operations. Plus, their monthly updates keep their clients’ integration systems fully-functional and ever-improving. Boomi offers built-in scalability. By teaming up with Boomi, companies are likely to give their employees high availability and get faster integration results.
Conventional “on-premise” integration systems created by MuleSoft consist of various products. It’s essentially a repurposed version of a basic on-premise integration legacy system. Separating features from these vendor-managed systems can become really difficult. To operate these integration platforms by MuleSoft, the company will need consistent hardware and server installations. There’s the added hassle for getting the platform versions upgraded.
Boomi also provides superior runtime along with edge computing. Boomi provides an original runtime engine that enables smart integrations to be arrayed wherever required in Boomi’s AtomSphere. There’s no limit on the number of Atoms that can be grouped as a Boomi Molecule to deliver a high-scale, circulated processing runtime. Administrators will get a unified centralized management structure where every dataset is linked and accessing information is easy and uncomplicated.
MuleSoft currently supports six different versions of a Runtime Engine. This makes things complicated as all the versions are less thorough as compared to Boomi’s AtomSphere. MuleSoft’s architecture is multi-tenant and does not provide the facility to attain metadata of accounts for Artificial Intelligence-based prediction or analysis. Their basic legacy architecture stops them from challenging Boomi’s speedy deployment and Edge Computing competences.
Overall, Boomi is technically more advanced than MuleSoft. Boomi’s platform is designed for integration and focuses on iPaaS, providing persistent connectivity across employees and processes. For companies who wish to have a ‘connected business’ and automate their workforce, Boomi is the leading choice.
Having a strong application program interface (API) is crucial for businesses looking to invest in integration platforms. These sets of routines and tools for building company-specific software applications detail how efficiently the various software components in a data integration system interact. Both Boomi and MuleSoft are IT leaders in API Management.
In the past few years, APIs have become more complex and expensive to manage on a day to day basis. As more efficient API management methods have been advanced by platforms like Boomi, MuleSoft has found itself struggling to serve commercial digital ecosystems efficiently.
API Management is one of MuleSoft’s fortes and a great value prop if you want to work with them. As a strong competitor in API management, some of Boomi’s features include:
In various performance tests, Boomi passed with flying colors. Boomi typically offers better build time and there’s a lesser risk of upgrade or maintenance requirements in these models. Companies can save a lot on service costs by using Boomi.
Plus, the complicated and multifaceted code-based development of MuleSoft platforms requires a lot of expertise. Such deep levels of specialized skills are hard to find in the market. MuleSoft experts can charge a premium for their services. On the other hand, there are currently 10,000 developers certified on the Boomi platform and Dell predicts this to grow to over 50,000 in upcoming years.
MuleSoft and Boomi are both good choices for businesses wanting to integrate many disparate systems together. As demand for integration platform specialists grows, more and more aspiring IT teams are leaning towards implementing Boomi. Since Boomi is less complicated and more feature-friendly than MuleSoft, learning or commercially applying the Boomi platform seems to be easier and faster. With over 10,000 businesses already using Boomi it’s clear why it’s ranking high on the Magic Quadrant.
If your organization wants to learn more about Boomi or needs help implementing it, consider teaming up with a Boomi partner like VistaVu for Boomi implementation services. VistaVu can bring to the table best practices that you don’t get in the certification training. We can recommend how to structure your Atomsphere, the best way to layout your process libraries and how to manage development vs. production routines. If you don’t have internal team support, don’t worry VistaVu is one of the few Managed Service Partners in North America that can help.
