Sometimes I wonder how children today are so different from us. When I was 7 years old, the same age as my second child now, I had no clue about digital things. We had analog TV, a radio, and that was it. I still remember the excitement when I first saw a laptop years later.
Today, our kids and we can’t imagine life without digital devices. We generate tons of data every day. Companies generate even more by exchanging, transforming, and sharing data across systems on a massive scale. Some of these flows are managed by generic data tools, while others require B2B solutions designed to manage partner networks and complex communications.
As a B2B product marketer, I often get asked how data integration vendors differ from what we do at Axway B2B. Recently, a customer who moved from Talend to Axway raised this exact question, so I decided to share my thoughts. I hope it helps others choose the solution that best fits their needs.
Talend – focused on data integration
Talend operates in the data integration and transformation space, supporting ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and data pipelines. Talend focuses on integrating, migrating, transforming, and analyzing data across databases, cloud platforms, and applications. In short, it’s about data.
Talend’s strengths lie in ingesting, cleansing, and transforming large data sets across systems. It even supports EDI formats such as X12 and EDIFACT through its Data Mapper, but it is primarily a data-centric tool. If you need to connect multiple trading partners, handle acknowledgments, or manage complex partner communication protocols, additional custom development is often required.
Axway B2B – built for partner networks
Axway B2B is different. It’s not just about moving data between applications. It’s about exchanging meaningful messages between organizations. Our focus is on managing large partner networks, handling compliance, standards, formats, and communication protocols out of the box.
While Talend provides some partner integration capabilities, it does not natively cover the full spectrum of B2B protocols and compliance requirements. For example, there is no native component for AS2, and advanced acknowledgment handling or onboarding workflows often require manual effort or scripting.
If tomorrow you need to connect to a partner that requires AS4 or OFTP and your platform doesn’t support it natively, you might find yourself writing scripts, deploying connectors, or even managing multiple systems. More partners mean more complexity, and maintenance can quickly become difficult. Imagine your boss asking you to add a new partner, and you simply can’t because of technical limitations.
Where Axway excels
This is where Axway B2Bi steps in. We simplify partner management, compliance, and onboarding, supporting multiple global standards and custom formats right out of the box. You don’t need to build custom integrations – you simply configure and go. You gain a centralized view of transactions and business processes, with intuitive dashboards that make monitoring order-to-cash, procurement, and other flows efficient and transparent.
- Certified interoperability: Axway holds official AS2 and AS4 interoperability certifications, meaning your connections follow trusted, globally recognized standards without custom work.
- Broad protocol coverage: Axway supports all major B2B messaging protocols, including AS1, AS2, AS3, AS4, RosettaNet RNIF, OFTP, and ebXML ebMS. Managing partner communications means speaking many languages — and Axway speaks them all.
- Partner network automation: Beyond data transfer, Axway automates partner onboarding, acknowledgments, monitoring, and compliance — at scale.
- Business-focused visibility: Our dashboards are built for both business and IT users, making it easy to monitor performance, transactions, and exceptions in real time.
More than data integration
We’re not just about integrating data. We’re the lifeblood of B2B ecosystems around the world. Our solutions automate and modernize B2B with APIs and AI, unify EDI and API flows, remove unnecessary complexity, and connect seamlessly to iPaaS and backend systems.
Axway enables customers to automate and innovate with confidence. It’s not just about AI-driven middleware management and applying proven best practices for partner connectivity — it’s about working hand in hand with our customer community, sharing our roadmap openly, collecting feedback, and dedicating our expertise and efforts to each customer’s success.
We understand the daily challenges our customers face in their operations, which is why companies like Cencora, Bosch, DB Schenker, TotalEnergies, and Moët Hennessy trust us with their critical transactions.
With the combined strengths of Axway B2B Integration (B2B/EDI) and Amplify Fusion (API/iPaaS), we offer a solution that simplifies both partner network complexity and orchestration across enterprise applications like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and SAP.
Looking for a vendor who truly speaks your B2B language? Check out how Axway can help you build a future-ready integration strategy.