Organizations today use 275 SaaS applications on average (660 for large enterprises), creating thousands of disconnected systems that don’t share data.
Disconnected systems force employees to manually copy information between applications, creating security gaps through unsecured file transfers and preventing teams from accessing and analyzing performance data. Companies can spend hours each day on manual data entry while their competitors automate these tasks so they can focus on more meaningful activities that drive business.
This iPaaS buyer’s guide helps you evaluate platforms based on your integration needs and find the right solution for you that connects your applications without breaking your budget.
What Is iPaaS, and Why Does Your Business Need It?
An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) is a cloud-based platform that connects applications, data, and processes across your organization to eliminate manual data transfer and automate business workflows. The term “iPaaS” is also used to describe the entire category of these solutions.
iPaaS solutions work by creating secure connections between your existing software applications. For instance, when someone enters a customer order in your CRM, the iPaaS automatically connects that data with your inventory system, accounting software, and shipping platform. This eliminates the manual work of copying information between systems and reduces errors from duplicate data entry.
Companies need iPaaS because software spending continues to grow rapidly. Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.61 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8% from 2024. The software segment alone will grow 14.2% to $1.24 trillion in 2025. Organizations are buying more applications. The problem is that these applications don’t naturally work together. Spending on data centers, which also need to be connected with critical systems, will also grow 23.2% to reach $405 billion in 2025, driven by AI infrastructure investments.
Without integration, your growing software portfolio becomes a liability instead of an asset. Teams waste time manually moving data between siloed systems, errors increase when information gets entered incorrectly, and decisions get delayed when managers can’t access current information from multiple systems. iPaaS platforms solve these problems by connecting your applications automatically.
Essential iPaaS Capabilities To Evaluate
When choosing an iPaaS, you need to evaluate three critical areas: the depth of integration capabilities available, how and where the platform can be deployed, and whether your team can use it effectively without extensive technical training.
Integration: Connect Data and Applications
Most organizations need two approaches to integrating their data and applications: simple, pre-built connectors and automation recipes for basic data transfer, and the ability for developers to create custom integrations, APIs, and data processes.
This is why it’s important to have an integration checklist. Know whether your platform of choice connects to your current ERP, CRM, HR, and database systems, and whether it will support pre-built connectors, custom development, or both.
To ensure that your platform handles your data processing requirements, you need automatic data format conversion, real-time and batch processing options, and the ability to handle large data volumes. When connections break, the platform should retry automatically and show you what’s not working. Test that you can make changes without breaking existing integrations.
API Management and Control
An iPaaS should offer API lifecycle management, allowing you to design, deploy, govern, and retire APIs from a single interface. It should support centralized governance, policy-based access controls, multi-gateway management through cloud and on-premises environments, and a searchable API library for discovery and reuse. It should also feature real-time analytics and detailed monitoring to ensure full visibility and control over API operations, while built-in security and compliance features enforce strict standards at every stage.
Data Management and Governance
Enterprise-grade platforms provide master data management capabilities that create single sources of truth for customer, product, and employee data. They include data quality validation, instant synchronization across systems, and lineage tracking that shows how data flows through your organization. Modern data integration solutions automate pipeline creation with log-based change data capture, eliminating manual ETL coding.
Advanced platforms create master data, or golden records, which are authoritative master data that synchronizes across all connected systems, ensuring every department works from the same accurate information. Look for metadata management, privacy controls, compliance automation, and change data capture capabilities that sync database changes immediately.
AI and Automation Capabilities
AI-powered platforms suggest data mappings automatically instead of making you configure every field connection manually. They learn from your integration patterns to recommend optimizations and detect errors before they cause problems. Advanced platforms include AI agents that can design, deploy, and manage integrations automatically using natural language commands. Modern solutions provide agent management capabilities that control and govern agent data access and activity, ensuring security and compliance. No-code agent builders let business users create custom agents without programming, while agent marketplaces offer pre-built solutions for common tasks. Look for automated documentation generation, smart data classification, and predictive analytics that warn you about performance issues before they impact users.
Deployment and Architecture Options
iPaaS solutions offer different deployment models that affect cost, performance, and security. Cloud-native platforms run entirely in the vendor’s data centers and require no infrastructure management, while hybrid options let you keep sensitive data on-premises. Multi-tenant architecture shares resources between customers to reduce costs, but single-tenant gives you dedicated infrastructure for better performance isolation.
Consider where you can deploy the platform’s runtime components. Some platforms only work in specific clouds,, while others support on-premises, multi-cloud, and edge deployments. Check auto-scaling capabilities to handle traffic spikes during busy periods like month-end reporting. Ask vendors for performance benchmarks and throughput capacity limits, plus their high availability guarantees and disaster recovery procedures. Geographic distribution options affect both performance and compliance, especially if you need to keep data in specific regions.
User Experience and Development Tools
The platform’s user interface determines who can build integrations and how quickly they can work. Low-code visual interfaces let business users create simple integrations using drag-and-drop tools, while code-based options give technical teams control over more complex scenarios. Look for collaboration features that let teams work together on integration projects without overwriting each other’s changes.
Testing and debugging tools help you fix problems before they affect business operations. The platform should include testing environments, error tracing capabilities, and clear documentation tools. Template libraries provide starting points for common integrations like CRM-to-marketing automation connections. Check the approval workflows for deploying changes and user role controls that prevent unauthorized modifications. Mobile capabilities let you monitor and manage integrations from anywhere.
Security, Compliance, and Governance Considerations
Enterprise iPaaS deployments must meet stringent security certifications, regulatory compliance requirements, and governance frameworks to protect sensitive data and ensure audit readiness across hybrid and multicloud environments.
- Enterprise-grade security certifications like FedRAMP, SOC 1/2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA prove the platform meets specific security standards through independent audits.
- Data encryption in transit and at rest protects information as it moves between systems and while stored in databases using AES-256 encryption standards.
- Role-based access controls and identity management ensure only authorized users can access specific integrations and integrate with existing Active Directory or LDAP systems.
- Multi-factor authentication and single sign-on support add security layers beyond passwords while simplifying user access across your organization.
- Network security and firewall configurations control system communication through VPN support, IP whitelisting, and network segmentation capabilities.
- Vulnerability scanning and security monitoring detect potential threats through regular security scans and real-time monitoring of suspicious activities.
- Compliance frameworks for regulated industries ensure the platform meets specific requirements for healthcare, financial services, or government organizations.
- Audit trails and comprehensive logging track who accessed data and when changes were made for compliance reporting and security investigations.
- Data sovereignty and geographic compliance requirements control where data gets stored and processed to meet GDPR and other regional regulations.
- Security incident response and notification procedures define how vendors handle security breaches and communicate with customers during security events.
- Backup and disaster recovery protocols protect against data loss with defined backup frequencies, recovery time objectives, and testing procedures.
- Third-party security assessments and penetration testing provide independent validation through external security firms that identify vulnerabilities.
Vendor Evaluation Criteria
iPaaS vendors offer comprehensive platforms, while others focus on certain use cases like API management or B2B transactions. Find a vendor whose strengths match your integration requirements rather than paying for unused features.
Market Position and Stability
Check customer base size, retention rates, and financial stability to ensure the vendor won’t disappear or get acquired. Review their innovation roadmap, R&D investments, and customer success stories in your industry to understand their market position and future viability.
Support and Partnership Ecosystem
Evaluate technical support quality, response times, and global coverage for your locations. Review training programs, professional services capabilities, and partner networks that can help with implementation. Check documentation quality and community resources for ongoing support.
Total Cost of Ownership Factors
Understand true costs beyond initial licensing fees. Review implementation costs, ongoing maintenance fees, potential hidden charges, and volume discounts. Factor in training investments and future upgrade costs. Calculate total ownership costs over three to five years.
Important Questions to Ask iPaaS Vendors
Before committing to an iPaaS, ask vendors specific questions about technical architecture, performance guarantees, implementation support, and future roadmap alignment to avoid costly surprises and ensure the solution delivers on its promises.
- Can the platform connect hybrid architectures?
- What are the automation capabilities?
- Does it provide enterprise-grade security?
- Who handles updates and maintenance?
- Can you provide relevant customer references?
Consider this comprehensive list of iPaaS vendor questions to set detailed evaluation criteria that cover technical capabilities, support models, and implementation considerations.
Common iPaaS Selection Mistakes to Avoid
The iPaaS market is a crowded space with vendors making strikingly similar claims of functionality. It’s easy for organizations to select an iPaaS vendor that demonstrates basic connectivity between their applications, forgetting to investigate a layer deeper to determine platform limitations, the potential for unexpected costs, and other issues that might make the solution a poor fit for your business. Here are some common pitfalls that you should keep top of mind during your evaluations:
- Focusing solely on upfront costs rather than total value delivered
- Underestimating integration complexity and custom development needs
- Ignoring scalability and growth requirements
- Overlooking vendor lock-in risks and exit strategies
- Insufficient evaluation of technical support quality and responsiveness
- Not adequately considering security and compliance features
- Failing to involve end users in the evaluation process
- Not considering integration with existing development workflows
- Inadequate assessment of vendor financial stability and longevity
- Rushing the selection process without proper proof-of-concept testing
- Neglecting to evaluate the learning curve and training requirements
- Underestimating the importance of community and ecosystem support
Why Boomi Is the Best iPaaS Solution
The critical importance of thorough iPaaS evaluation in today’s fragmented digital landscape cannot be overstated. The right platform choice will become a strategic enabler for AI adoption and business transformation, and provide actionable next steps for readers to confidently begin their vendor selection and evaluation process. That’s why you should make sure to include the Boomi enterprise platform in your evaluations. Boomi offers:
- Low-code visual interface with AI assistance: Drag-and-drop integration creation is enhanced by AI agents, like DesignGen that automatically design processes using natural language, enabling both technical and business users to create connections without extensive coding knowledge.
- Extensive pre-built connectors: Over 300,000 endpoints covering popular SaaS applications, databases, and enterprise systems, reducing development time significantly.
- Unified platform with AI orchestration: Combines integration, API management, master data management, B2B/EDI capabilities, and comprehensive AI agent lifecycle management through Agentstudio all in one platform rather than requiring multiple tools.
- Hybrid deployment flexibility: Built for cloud, on-premises, or completely managed zero-footprint deployment with elastic scaling, high availability, and global data center presence for reliable performance.
- Enterprise-grade governance and automation: Robust security, monitoring, and management with intelligent AI agents that automatically classify sensitive data, troubleshoot integration failures, and provide federated API governance across all endpoints.
- Advanced data management capabilities: Automated end-to-end data pipelines with managed connectors, log-based change data capture (CDC), and enhanced observability for seamless data ingestion, transformation, and activation from any source.
Boomi has been positioned as a leader in Gartner® named Boomi as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service 11 consecutive times.1 Get the Gartner Magic Quadrant for iPaaS report to compare Boomi with other platforms.
Download the “iPaaS Vendor Evaluation Guide” for a list of key questions to ask integration platform providers — and to find out why the answers are important.
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Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service, Andrew Humphreys, Andrew Comes, Keith Guttridge, Allan Wilkins, May 19, 2025.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Note: Boomi was recognized as Dell Boomi from 2014 to 2019.