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MuleSoft vs PilotFish Comparison

MuleSoft vs PilotFish

Which One Comes Out on Top?

PilotFish integration software connects 90% of the top insurers, financial service companies, a wide range of manufacturers, virtually every kind of entity in healthcare, as well as governments and their agencies. For over 20 years, PilotFish has been purely focused on providing products and services that enable the integration of ANYTHING to ANYTHING — ANYWHERE. It’s what we do; it’s all we do and our client base validates how good we are at it.

We welcome you to take a deep dive into how PilotFish compares to MuleSoft and see why we believe we offer you a better value proposition.

30-Second Summary

  • PilotFish’s integration suite costs a whole lot less than Anypoint, plus it delivers a whole lot more.
    • Anypoint has a much higher base price and you pay extra for lots and lots of add-ons.
    • Unlike Anypoint, PilotFish licenses include every component, processor and connector (adapters) at no extra cost.
    • PilotFish licenses include support for all data formats that it offers at no extra cost.
    • PilotFish lets you avoid getting locked into Anypoint’s SaaS-only delivery model, where prices go up and up.
  • PilotFish offers ANY to ANY integration, which goes far beyond Anypoint’s limiting API-based focus.
  • PilotFish consistently wins in side-by-side evaluations ranking higher in overall ease-of-use, depth of functionality and time to configure, test and deploy integrations.
  • PilotFish offers more licensing options than Anypoint:
    • Run PilotFish software in the cloud, on-premises or any hybrid combination.
    • Choose between On-Demand or One-Time licenses.
  • PilotFish is privately held, financially strong and just the right size to give you the attention and support you need. Try getting that from a company acquired by Salesforce, a 20 billion-dollar “CRM company”.

PilotFish will reduce your upfront investment, deliver more value and generate a higher ROI. We invite you to take a close look at the detailed comparisons of MuleSoft vs PilotFish across key factors, starting with pricing.

 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – Pricing Comparison

Since its acquisition by Salesforce, MuleSoft’s base license price has kept going up (now starting at $80K*). Plus, almost Anything and Everything else you need is extra. In contrast, PilotFish’s base price is almost half that cost and offers double the maximum hardware configuration allowed. MuleSoft Enterprise users can expect to pay $250-$400K annually, and even more with all the add-ons.

Monthly base price
$50,100
Annually**
4 core/16GB
$80,000
Annually*
2 core/8GB
Increased charges for
higher data volumes
No
Yes
Enterprise and HA level license
$109,200
Annually***
$250-$400K
Annually
* MuleSoft pricing is based on price-tracking ITQlik
** PilotFish base price includes 1 eiPlatform (Production instance) and 1 eiConsole license
*** Includes 2 eiPlatforms (Production instance), 1 eiDashboard (Enterprise) and 4 eiConsole licenses 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – More Value, No Add-on Costs

PilotFish base licensing includes every component – processors, listener and transport adapters and supported data formats – at no extra cost. With MuleSoft, expect add-on after add-on. In fact, MuleSoft’s Titanium Subscription lists 18 add-ons! These quickly bring an Enterprise user’s cost up to $250-$400K or more annually.

Complex licensing model with
many additional add-on costs
No
Yes
Base license includes support for all
data formats including HL7 & EDI
Included
Additional
Base license includes all connectors,
components and processors
Included
Additional

Included PilotFish Components, Listeners, Transports, Processors and Supported Standards/Data Formats

 
PilotFish Components
Data MapperFile Specification EditorXPATH Expression Tester
XSLT TestereiPlatform EmulatorBuilt-in H2 Database
Inline Testing ModeXML Editor
 
PilotFish Supported Standards
ACORD (DTCC, AL3)DICOMPDF
ACORD (LAH, PCS, RLC, AML)HL7 2.x/3.x  FHIRPositional Flat Files (COBOL)
Binary (.wav/.jpg)JSONX12 EDI
CCD/CDAKey/ValueXLS/XLSX
Delimited Files (CSV/Custom)NCPDPXML

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – More Licensing Options

PilotFish offers a wide variety of licensing options to meet any business requirement. You can choose between an End-User On-Demand (Pay-As-You-Go) Model or One-Time Licenses. You can run PilotFish software in the cloud, on-premise or in any hybrid combination. 

Qualified organizations can become VARs (Value Added Resellers), resell PilotFish software and provide services to implement PilotFish Solutions. Other organizations may choose to bundle PilotFish with their applications, services and/or equipment with a restricted license. The monthly maximum cost for a restricted license is 1/3 that of a full end-user license. Additional discounts may apply for pre-purchasing licenses. Quantity discounts may apply as well.

For details on licensing options, VAR, or product bundling     813 864 8662     Contact Us

End-User License
Yes
No
Value Added Reseller (VAR) License
Yes
No
Product Bundling & VAR License
Yes
No
On-Demand Model (Pay-As-You-Go)
Yes
No

Setting up your environment after licensing is another consideration and point of comparison. No matter which PilotFish licensing option you choose set up is quick and easy. The eiPlatform for Windows is a standalone eiPlatform/eiConsole installation which runs as a Windows Service. Other operating systems, such as Linux, are distributed via a WAR file to run in an application container.

For cloud installs, Docker containerization provides a quick and easy setup. PilotFish’s On-Demand model can be run on any kind of infrastructure (Azure, AWS, etc.)

In contrast in terms of initial setup, MuleSoft users report that if it is cloud-based, it is very simple. If it is on-premise, it is complex. When implementing MuleSoft, there are key things to keep in mind concerning configuration, features, and different options for different systems. An on-premise MuleSoft setup requires special skills and you generally need to source in-house or contract a large number of professional services.

 

“VAR on PilotFish Product Suite – simply amazing”

PilotFish Client Product Quote“As a software vendor (licensing PilotFish) servicing over 65 customers, having implemented numerous real time and batch interfaces, we have found eiPlatform to be fast, robust and extremely reliable. In fact, over the past 3 years we have not experienced a route failure that was due to eiPlatform. In combination with eiDashboard, we have enabled our first line support teams to effectively identify any operational issues experienced thereby providing our customers with rapid feedback and faster issue resolution. Amazing depth of functionality, ease of use, capability to test and review data sets at each step in the assembly line, speed with which interfaces can be built, tested and deployed.”

 

Executive Head, Development Support Services – Financial Services

 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – Not Limited to API-Based Integration

MuleSoft’s acquisition by Salesforce may be leading to a “Salesforce-first” focus. One concern is that a focus on integrating primarily with other Salesforce cloud offerings may make it too narrowly focused to meet all of an organization’s integration requirements. How would this focus, as well as MuleSoft’s API-led integration, affect you and your ability to:

  • Integrate ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, not just anything with Salesforce?
  • Integrate ANYTHING and EVERYTHING whether using APIs or not?

When the workflow is transactional, API-led integrations have limitations. API’s work on a request-response basis. You must string together multiple API calls to pull information and perform functions. Your system has to go out and grab data in sequence to utilize APIs. The problem is that a huge percentage of business integrations are transactional and message-driven. A source of data generates or publishes a message, then that message goes downstream to consumers. It’s not a series of start, stop, pull or request-response.

The API model is restrictive for transactional interfaces. You can make it work, it’s just not going to perform as well and it’s just not as fluid as it needs to be.

In this important respect, MuleSoft’s API model can be very limiting affecting performance, whereas PilotFish can handle all of the throughput. PilotFish’s ability to handle millions of messages quickly, seamlessly and message processed end-to-end, is an advantage over an API model.

 
MuleSoft’s API-Centric ArchitecturePilotFish’s Robust Integration Framework
While very beneficial in certain integration scenarios, creating APIs and integrating with them requires programming expertise, more time and effort to implement, and much more post-deployment maintenance.PilotFish does not emphasize APIs over other integration types. For most backend internal system integrations, APIs simply cost more to develop and maintain without adding any real value. In today’s complex environment, you need a tool that will handle any and all integrations well, including APIs.
Not intended for transactional interfaces or standards-based integration.PilotFish excels in messaging, events and transactional integrations – including all standard and proprietary data formats. We support a wide range of industry standards (X12 EDI, HL7, ACORD, OpenTravel, HR-XML, DTCC, MISMO, etc.)
Lack of visibility and tracking for high volume real-time and batch transactions.PilotFish provides end-to-end transaction visibility for all transaction types with its eiDashboard.

Unlike MuleSoft, PilotFish provides a consistent means to adeptly handle not only large batch-oriented data and standards transaction messaging, but also highly conversational XML and JSON APIs – including new versions of data formats or industry standards that you need. Configuration just requires changing a handful of options in the application.

PilotFish’s robust integration framework bridges the gap between legacy and new systems, applications, devices, equipment and databases – and we’ve made it easier than you ever imagined. PilotFish is architected to be infinitely extensible with our Open API and flexible to meet any integration requirement. It is both future-proof and responds agilely to near-term changing requirements.

 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – Highest ROI

Net Return on Investment / Cost of Investment

There is no doubt that integration suites like MuleSoft and PilotFish can give you a tremendous Return on Investment (ROI). The question is not which integration suite – MuleSoft or PilotFish – gives you a high ROI, but which one gives you the highest ROI. 

Calculating ROI is a function of not only the Net Return on Investment but also the Cost of Investment or:

How to Calculate ROI for Software

The PilotFish integration suite has proven time and again to not only provides a higher Net Return on Investment, but the Cost of Investment is far less than MuleSoft, resulting in a much higher overall ROI.

When the far greater productivity achieved with PilotFish and consequent huge ROI gains are calculated, the overall ROI delivered by PilotFish is even higher.

 
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform™PilotFish eiPlatform
Long Learning Curve4-Day Training course with a mentorship program brings teams up to speed fast
Must have a deeper technical background to develop interfaces and operate successfully.Standardized interface development with a graphical automated assembly line process. Removes dependencies on who builds interfaces. Enables BAs to do a large percentage of integrations, reducing labor costs.
Requires learning MuleSoft’s proprietary mapping language. Mappings are not reusable outside of MuleSoft.Graphical drag & drop data mapper automates mapping processes and opens the door to BA use. Users can work in the graphical or code view. Generates reusable W3C compliant XSLT underneath.
API design, versioning, publication, usage and long-term management are painful.APIs are built with the same methodology as other integrations. Save time & money with a consistent development pattern.
Support randomly assigned to staff with support ticket delays standard.2 engineers assigned per account. Affordable monthly support plans with fast response times for on-demand, hands-on help via live chat, WebEx sessions, phone calls and email.
“Primarily ease of use”

PilotFish Client Product Quote“The reason for choosing eiPlatform: primarily ease of use. The eiConsole user interface and functionality were heavily preferred by our integration technicians and software engineers over the competitive products we evaluated.”

 

Director, Software Engineering – Software and Equipment

 

Simply put, PilotFish is a smaller investment, feature-rich solution that can do anything (and more) than MuleSoft does (and better) backed by a company that is totally focused on integration.  

To discuss ROI gains achieved using PilotFish   813 864 8662    Contact Us

 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – Ease-of-Use and Higher Productivity

PilotFish offers the world’s only Graphical Automated Interface Assembly Line where configuration replaces coding. PilotFish’s proprietary 3-Pane Visual Data Mapper offers drag & drop mapping which replaces scripting. PilotFish was architected so that non-developers and business analysts could be key players in the building, managing and maintenance of interfaces.

  • In the eiConsole, users create interfaces using prebuilt configuration panels – no coding or scripting required.
  • In the eiConsole’s Data Mapper component, transactions are all mapped simply and quickly following a consistent user interface and methodology regardless of the format.
  • The Data Mapper generates W3C compliant XSLT in code view and in real time. Users can switch back and forth between the graphical view and the XSLT view by toggling between tabs.
  • With PilotFish, your teams only need to learn and use one solution, no matter what the data format or integration scenario.

Let’s compare the very different approaches of the two products:

 
MuleSoft’s Bucket of Tools ApproachPilotFish’s Assembly Line Configuration Process
Anypoint Studio provides very little structure and guidance for how to build out integrations. This leaves it to the user, who may not have the product experience to determine the best path or how to use best practices. It also makes it more difficult for the new user to determine the correct and most efficient way to implement certain integrations and patterns.PilotFish offers users a graphical 7-stage graphical Automated Interface Assembly Line process for building, managing and maintaining interfaces. This configuration vs code-driven process enables business analysts and non-developers to perform a large portion of the integration work freeing up developers for more strategic projects. Each and every interface is configured using the same process.
Each developer working within Anypoint Studio tends to create integrations differently in order to meet certain requirements. This leads to every integration being built slightly differently and makes interfaces harder to maintain when a new user or new team is involved (or the original creator leaves).The PilotFish Assembly Line approach ensures that each interface is configured in the same way, thus removing dependencies on who created an interface or how. This facilitates the ease of maintaining interfaces even by those who did not originally create them.
Anypoint Studio offers many features that fall outside of core integration. This includes flow control, routing and sub-flows. Although these features do have a purpose for a MuleSoft/Salesforce integration, most users are forced to learn things that are not directly related to creating an integration route.PilotFish’s focus is 100% on integration. The PilotFish graphical Automated Interface Assembly Line guides users from the ingestion of source data at one end to routing data to the target(s) at the other and includes the processors, mappings and listeners in the correct order.
Users must learn Anypoint’s proprietary Dataweave language for data mapping.The PilotFish Data Mapper with built-in transformation modules and format builders automates mapping, no matter how complex, using drag & drop (no scripting required). The Data Mapper utilizes W3C standard XSLT generated under the covers. Users have the option of working in a graphical OR code view and can switch back and forth between the two.

Much of the complexity around MuleSoft is not needed in the majority of integration use cases, plus more configuration is needed than with PilotFish. PilotFish’s products are architected to minimize complexity and yet be infinitely extensible and flexible. Our mission was to create the world’s easiest to use and most intuitive integration platform and we succeeded.

 

PilotFish vs MuleSoft – Industry’s Longest Free Trial

MuleSoft Free TrialPilotFish Free Trial
30 Days
90 Days*
* Full Version that includes all components including an eiPlatform Runtime Emulator, Inline Testing Facility and all supported data formats.

PilotFish offers users triple the length of MuleSoft’s trial period. Unlike MuleSoft’s 30-day trial which gives users barely enough time to get started and set up. PilotFish offers users a Full-Product 90-Day Trial. A simple download allows you to take a Test Drive. Hundreds of pages of step-by-step Tutorials and Documentation help you with your evaluation as well as chat support if you get stuck along the way.

Since its founding in 2001, PilotFish has been solely focused on the development of software products that enable the integration of systems, applications, equipment and devices. Billions of bits of data transverse through PilotFish software connecting 90% of the top insurers, financial service companies, a wide range of manufacturers, virtually every kind of entity in healthcare, as well as governments and their agencies. PilotFish distributes Product Licenses and delivers services directly to end users, solution providers and Value-Added Resellers across multiple industries to address a broad spectrum of integration requirements.

Give us a call at 813 864 8662 or click the button. We’ll be glad to walk you through how we can meet your needs for any integration scenario. PilotFish will reduce your upfront investment, deliver more value and generate a higher ROI.

MuleSoft is a registered trademark of MuleSoft, Inc., a Salesforce company.
X12, chartered by the American National Standards Institute for 35+ years, develops & maintains EDI standards & XML schemas.
HL7 is the registered trademark of Health Level Seven International.

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