Detailed comparison across 10 dimensions
Winner: Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka clearly comes out ahead of Confluent on Staquest's weighted six-dimension score. Apache Kafka has a free tier; Confluent does not.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | saas tool | hybrid |
| Company | Confluent, Inc. | Apache Software Foundation |
| Free Tier | ||
| Has API | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Learning Curve | - | - |
| Integration | - | - |
| Trending | Stable | Stable |
| GitHub Stars | - | - |
| Industries | Data & AnalyticsDevelopmentLegal & ComplianceMedia & EntertainmentCybersecurity & InfoSecSales & CRM | Data & AnalyticsDevelopmentMedia & EntertainmentSales & CRM |
| Categories | data-engineering | data-engineering |
| Website | Visit | Visit |
Apache Kafka
usage based
custom
open source
| Feature | confluent | apache-kafka |
|---|---|---|
| Autoscaling | ||
| Distributed Event Streaming | ||
| Cloud Native Scaling | ||
| Fault-Tolerant | ||
| Complete Streaming Apps And Data Pipelines | ||
| High Throughput | ||
| Connect: Connectors | ||
| Low Latency | ||
| Elastic Ckus (Eckus) For Horizontal Scalability | ||
| Scalable | ||
| Govern: Stream Governance | ||
| Hybrid And Multicloud Architecture Support | ||
| Process: Apache Flink | ||
| Stream: Kafka Clusters |
Showing 14 of 14 features
Dashes mean the feature isn't listed in our data. The tool may still support it.
On Staquest's weighted six-dimension scoring, Apache Kafka comes out ahead overall, though Confluent can be the better fit depending on your priorities — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown above.
Apache Kafka offers a free tier; Confluent does not currently list one.
Apache Kafka is open source. The feature comparison and dimension scores above cover the full breakdown.
