IBM i: Pro and Con

August 11, 2025 Alex Woodie

Everybody has an opinion, and it seems that many people these days feel the need to share those opinions, for better or worse. When it comes to IBM i, the volume of sentiments may be lower than, say, the activities of tech CEOs at Coldplay concerts. However, the proprietary server still elicits thoughts and feelings, both positive and negative, as evidenced by reviews recently shared by the IT marketplace known as G2.

G2 was founded back in 2012 with a simple goal: Provide actionable, crowdsourced information on enterprise IT software and gear, without requiring customers to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to a white-glove IT analyst firm. “Why is it easier to find authentic information about a $100 hotel room than a $100,000 piece of software?” the group asked.

The company, originally called G2 Crowd, also had a soft spot for hardware and software providers struggling to get on the radars of tech execs via established IT analyst firms like Gartner or IDC. “If you’re a tiny vendor, and you’re not spending money with them, you’re just not going to be in the report,” G2 Co-founder and CEO Godard Abel told me back in 2013.

If asked whether you should invest in a platform like IBM i, most mainstream IT analyst firms these days would happily cash your check, do their mighty best to conceal their giggles, and then advise you to move away from IBM i as quickly as humanly possible. In fact, they might even do you the favor of creating a five-year plan to migrate your apps to containerized microservices running in the cloud, ensuring continued productivity and employment – for legions of system integrators and specialists, anyway.

Back in the real world, we know the IBM i server continues to provide remarkable value for the companies that have bet their businesses on it. But we also know that it doesn’t have the best reputation, and that few new businesses are adopting it over competing platforms. The continued relevance of IBM i in a rapidly changing IT world is why it’s interesting to read some of the IBM i reviews, both pro and con, that G2 shares on its site.

IBM i: Pro

The pro side of G2’s review, which is based on comments recorded in 44 reviews, features attributes often cited by IBM i professionals, including reliability, stability, and security.

“It’s a solid platform that has been around for years, yet it continues to evolve with modern technologies,” one G2 reviewer stated.

G2 used AI to summarize the IBM i pros and cons. (Image source: G2)

“IBM is one of the most reliable platform[s] for business. This platform provides great security for data with features like access control [and] encryption,” another G2 reviewer stated.

“It is undoubtedly the best OS if we consider robust architecture, security and reliability,” a banking user wrote. “May be because is out there from a long time. Rarely any downtime.”

One G2 user had a great experience developing and testing code on IBM i. “The simplicity of setting up a debugging and being able to see your code execution in real time was wonderful,” the reviewer stated. “It was also easy to do code compare, changes etc. all from one clean dashboard.”

It’s nice for logistics, said one midmarket logistics user. “This system is very customizable. I enjoy using this system as it helps keep our company running smoothly,” the reviewer wrote.

“The IBM iSeries is not only powerful but also extremely resilient,” a network support engineer wrote. “With 100% uptime, who can argue with statistics of this level. Also, no known malware or viruses in the wild I am aware of so one of the more secure server solutions available.”

IBM i: Con

The con side of the equation reminds us of concerns that are also frequently mentioned by people who make their living on the platform, such as an unfriendly user interface, high cost, and difficulty in finding people with technical skills.

“What I dislike about IBM i is its somewhat outdated interface and the steep learning curve for new users. It can also be hard to find talent with deep expertise on the platform,” a G2 reviewer noted.

“Not enough apps and configuration of some components can be ‘clunky’,” one CIO for a midmarket company wrote.

“It uses old programming languages like [RPG/CL] for which the talent pool availability is declining year on year,” a verified user in banking wrote. “The terminal and development environment is outdated and debugging is a pain.”

“Like any product you don’t see, it is difficult to justify the price tag to management,” an enterprise user in healthcare told G2. “It’s not until you reap the benefits of the product that you can justify the expense. Difficult to get buy-in from the business.”

“Other than being outdated, it takes many more steps to do something that more current software could do in a few clicks,” a pharmacy technician wrote. “The UI is also not the greatest but after awhile you get used to it.”

“API is kind of old and navigation is very static,” a solution architect wrote on G2. “The OS support for external application to the cloud or digital signature and automation stuff is very hard to integrate.”

Some of these reviews go back six years, so they may not reflect the current collection of tools IBM Rochester has on offer, including things like the new Navigator. Many negative sentiments may also be due to old application software, which is not the fault of IBM but of application vendors who haven’t updated their product in quite a while.

All told, the reviews look accurate, both on the pro and the con side. IBM i is a stable, secure machine that’s relied upon by tens of thousands of organizations to run business applications. It doesn’t go down, and it doesn’t catch colds that lead it cough up data. On the other hand, the text-based user interface leave something to be desired, as does the high upfront cost compared to Windows or Linux systems. The skills issue is another concern that may give CIOs pause before committing their company’s future to this server.

You can read all the G2 reviews on IBM i here.

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