Apache Synapse

I'm messing around with Apache Synapse. It's an open source mediation framework from Apache. It seems pretty straight forward to use. I was looking for a light weight mediation server to show capabilities and uses of mediation servers or intermediaries. I'm just starting out with it. I'm also looking at ServiceMix which is much more robust but a bit more complicated. It does mediation but a whole lot more like messaging for persistence which is very important in my mind. It's more of a full featured ESB type platform although it lacks the tooling associated with more expensive commercial products. LogicBlaze is based on ServiceMix which I hope to get too as well sometime in the future. Time is always an issue. My ultimate goal is to compare development efforts with more expensive platforms to that of open source solutions which are cheaper or free but have primitive tooling.