Integration Platforms As A Service (Old Category)

Integration Platforms As A Service is the old name of this category, and its final edition contains a transfer no scorecard could have planned: the Leader at the top of it no longer owns the platform it was scored on. The Forrester Wave: Integration Platforms As A Service, Q3 2023 put Software AG first, and within a year IBM owned the software that earned the score.

The final edition under the plural name: The Forrester Wave: Integration Platforms As A Service, Q3 2023

The Q3 2023 Wave, published August 8, 2023, was authored by senior analyst David Mooter, who still covers this market today. It scored fifteen providers on current offering, strategy, and market presence.

Three Leaders surfaced publicly. Software AG took the highest scores in both Current Offering and Strategy with webMethods.io, earning maximum scores in the ease of integration development, innovation, roadmap, and adoption criteria. Workato took a Leader placement on maximum roadmap and vision scores, with Forrester's line that it "democratizes integration with high-end ease of use." Microsoft completed the three on Azure Integration Services.

Boomi sat among the Strong Performers, with the highest possible scores in wizard-driven integration, vision, roadmap, partner ecosystem, and pricing flexibility and transparency.

The transfer inside the scorecard

The Software AG story is the edition's hidden plot. The 2023 citation praised webMethods for a differentiated vision of democratized integration, APIs, event-driven architecture, and an AI-heavy roadmap. In December 2023, IBM announced it was acquiring Software AG's webMethods and StreamSets businesses, and the deal closed in mid-2024.

A Leader scored on one asset, the asset sold, and the buyer took the Leader seat in the next edition. No scorecard predicted that. Scorecards cannot predict transfers; they can only record which capability earned the score, and that record is exactly what made the asset worth buying.

For a buyer, the lesson is concrete: a vendor's placement attaches to its technology and its team, and both can change owners between editions. The tier column is a snapshot of assets, not a promise about who will own them at renewal.

The democratization thesis

The 2023 edition's common thread is democratization, and every confirmed citation says it in its own way. Software AG on democratized integration through APIs and event-driven architecture. Workato on "high-end ease of use" for fusion teams, business people and IT building together. Boomi's Strong Performer citation running on wizard-driven development that made integration approachable outside central IT.

The market was deciding who integration was for, and the answer was no longer the integration specialist alone. That answer set up everything the next edition would score: natural language assistance, AI assistants in the build experience, and integration as something business teams touch.

For the buyer of that era, the criteria sheet doubled as an org-chart question. If the vendor's strongest scores were wizard-driven development and ease of use, the vendor was betting your business teams would build alongside IT. If they were roadmap and API publishing, the bet was on governance and central control. The 2023 scorecard did not settle that argument. It simply scored both bets fairly, which is why the edition still reads well as a snapshot of a market before its own AI revolution.

Where the market went

The successor evaluation, The Forrester Wave: Integration Platform As A Service, Q3 2025, dropped the s from the title and changed the center of gravity. It is covered in depth in its own article under the singular name. The essentials for this arc: IBM is now a Leader with the top Current Offering score, on the acquired webMethods and watsonx, Workato held its Leader seat with maximum Vision, Innovation, and Roadmap scores, and Boomi was promoted from Strong Performer to Leader with the top Strategy score.

The same three arguments, one edition later: breadth, vision, and ease, with the asset transfer settled into the tier table. The plural name's final scorecard was a roster before the sale. The singular name's first scorecard was a roster after it.

What the old name's record still tells you

The honest limitation of the 2023 edition is its date stamp. The report scored a market six months before the generative AI wave hit integration platforms in force, and the 2025 edition's criteria, AI agents, MCP support, orchestration, simply did not exist as scored capabilities in 2023.

Three of fifteen placements are publicly confirmed, and the rest never surfaced. This article names what is confirmed and nothing beyond it. The plural edition is best read today as the bridge document: the last scorecard of integration as plumbing, written just before integration became the substrate for agents.

Three questions the transfer teaches

Who owns the technology behind the placement you were quoted? The Software AG lesson applies to every vendor on your shortlist. Ask which assets, teams, and products sit behind the tier, and what the vendor's ownership plan is for them at your renewal date.

Is your integration team shrinking or widening? The democratization thesis means your buyers are now also your business teams. If your stack stays specialist-only, half the next scorecard's criteria will not describe your needs.

What happens to your estate if the vendor's crown jewel is sold? Continuity clauses, escrow, and migration paths for the specific capability you bought. Get them in the contract, because the 2023 edition proves the asset can change hands while the score is still warm. The vendor you renew with may not be the vendor you were scored against.

Forrester does not endorse any vendor named here, and tier placement should not be read as a recommendation to buy.

A close neighbor in Forrester's own coverage is DevOps Platforms, where forrester renamed this category after a keyword survey found zero of forty one vendor websites used its old name, and the new scorecard made built-in security a requirement just to be evaluated at all.