Mulesoft v/s Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC)

In this article I am comparing Mulesoft and Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC). This comparison is on the basis of my experience of using these two tools. This comparison is from the perspective of different job roles i.e. Developers, Architects & Support Professional.

Cost comparison is not done here.

Developers

Training

Mulesoft provide free online training for developers which is very good and covers all the topics like basics, Cloudhub, API Manager, training website?link?is here.?

Oracle also provide free online training for developers which includes Oracle Integration Cloud service and Process Cloud Service training. Oracle training website?link?is here.

Advantage -?Both

Documentation & Forums

Mulesoft documentation is good, it covers all topics in detail. Help on internet forums is also available.?

Oracle documentation is good but documentation related to OIC architecture is not good, this service is still mostly a black box. Help on internet forums is not as good as it is currently for Mulesoft. E.g. in?stackoverflow.com?[mule] tag return 7,692 questions while [oracle-integration-cloud] tag return 8 questions and [oic] tag return 0 questions.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Ease of Setup & Development

In Mulesoft developer need to setup Anypoint Studio for development of application. Although Mule application development option available in Anypoint Platform Design Center but this is not popular or preferred among developers. Packaging application in Anypoint Studio sometime a struggle for developers.

In OIC developer do not need to do anything like setup of IDE for the development of integration application. OIC integration designer is used to develop integrations. No headache for developers to package & deploy application, on this front it is a relief for developers.

Advantage -?OIC

Rapid Development

Mulesoft development needs setup of IDE, packaging and deployment of application. Also it needs some level of coding and configuration of component.?

Development in OIC is much quicker in comparison of Mulesoft. Developer do not need to setup IDE, package and deploy applications. Reuse connections, automatic request and response message structure needs minimum configuration of components. A developer can create integration quickly.

Advantage -?OIC

Connectors & Integration Components

Mulesoft provides a verity of connectors to use (more than 125,?link?here) and custom connectors can also be developed.

OIC provides approximately 80 connectors (link?is here) in OIC Gen2, custom connectors can't be developed.

Mulesoft has integration development components (link) using which complex integration in variety of requirements can be build.

OIC component list is not as rich as in Mulesoft but still complex integration in variety of requirements can be build.

Error or fault handling is equally good in both Mulesoft and OIC.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Message Transformation

One of the most important capability of integration tool is to transform messages during the integration flow execution. Mulesoft provides?Dataweave?which is function rich and powerful message transformation language.

In OIC developers uses XSLT for message transformation. In OIC, XSLT is not as rich in function and powerful as Mulesoft Dataweave and also not easy to code for developer.

Testing of transformation is equally good in both Mulesoft and OIC.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Debugging & Diagnostics

Developers in Mulesoft has option to run the integration flows in debug mode and can also control the log levels which helps developers to diagnose issues during development.?

In OIC developer can run the integration with trace option and payload printing in development environment which helps developers to debug the integrations and it is quite easy to use, developer do not need to enable debugging etc. But developer can’t control the log levels like enabling HTTP wire logging to diagnose some issue during development. For service side logs developer has dependency is on Oracle support which is time consuming.?

Advantage -?Both

Architects

Deployment Options

Mulesoft provides multiple deployment option i.e. Cloud, On-premise and hybrid?Link

OIC provides only Cloud deployment option.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

API Lead Connectivity

Mulesoft provides tools and platform for all phases of API lifecycle i.e. API specification design, exchange for API documentation, API Manager as API gateway, Cloudhub to run API implementation and analytics tools for monitoring. Mulesoft iPaaS platform also support API lead architecture like exposing Experience API to public and keeping System and Process API private.

Oracle also provide different tools and platform using which API Lead connectivity can be achieved. Tools available in?Oracle Cloud Infrastructure?for different API lifecycle phases are provided like Oracle API Platform for specification design & documentation, API Gateway, OIC to run API implementation. But Oracle do not publicize a clear approach on this like Mulesoft has API-Lead connectivity methodology.?

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Testing Framework

Mulesoft has MUnit as their application testing framework to automate the test for integration applications.

OIC has assertor but this is now deprecated, so currently OIC do not have any option for automated testing.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Support Professionals

Product Support

Product support is very important. In my experience Mulesoft product support is excellent while Oracle support is not as quick as Mulesoft but it still good.

Advantage -?Both

Version Upgrade

Upgrade in Mulesoft Cloudhub and on-premise implementation is quick and easy (only Mule 4.x upgrade is considered here not Mule 3.x to 4.x). In OIC it is also easy and quick, in both tools not much efforts are needed.

Advantage -?Both

Diagnose Product Issues

In Mulesoft server logging level can be set by Support team if it needs to diagnose an issue in application and server logs are accessible to support team.

In OIC server logging level for application can’t be set by support team to diagnose an issue. Server logs can be accessed by Oracle support team.?Although servers logs are not required by support team frequently but when needed then it will be time consuming to diagnose in OIC.

Advantage -?Mulesoft

Monitoring

In Mulesoft support team has options of Visualizer, Monitoring, download application logs or externalize Mulesoft logs to monitor the application.?

In OIC’s support team has integration monitoring options to see dashboard, errored integrations and track each integration instance. Externalize activity stream in OCI logging is also available.?

Advantage -?Both

Conclusion

In most of the points across three job roles?Mulesoft?has the advantage.

Developer:?Mulesoft?- 5/7?OIC?- 4/7

Architect:? Mulesoft?- 3/3?OIC?- 0/3

Support:? Mulesoft?- 4/4?OIC?- 3/4