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Amazon MSK vs Apache Kafka comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Amazon MSK provides positive ROI by reducing integration time, minimizing licensing costs, and supporting flexible, cost-efficient experimentation with large data volumes.
Sentiment score
7.0
Apache Kafka's ROI benefits include cost savings, quick data insights, increased productivity, and efficient high-traffic data management.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Amazon MSK customer service is generally praised for accessibility and responsiveness, but expertise and cost can vary by plan.
Sentiment score
5.8
Apache Kafka's support stems largely from an open-source community, with varied satisfaction in third-party and enterprise assistance.
Amazon's support is excellent.
There is plenty of community support available online.
The Apache community provides support for the open-source version.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Amazon MSK offers efficient manual scalability, rated six to nine by users, suitable for different organizational needs.
Sentiment score
7.8
Apache Kafka's scalability is a major strength, allowing easy horizontal and vertical scaling to meet diverse use case demands.
The functionality for scaling comes out of the box and is very effective.
Customers have not faced issues with user growth or data streaming needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon MSK is stable with high user ratings, though concerns exist due to its newness and some Windows-specific issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
Apache Kafka is praised for its resilience and reliability, despite minor configuration challenges and performance under high data volumes.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon MSK needs better integration, configuration ease, improved documentation, cost reduction, and feature enhancements to compete and integrate effectively.
Apache Kafka needs UI improvements, simplified deployment, reduce ZooKeeper dependency, enhance documentation, client libraries, performance, and advanced features.
The increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings.
The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds.
We are always trying to find the best configs, which is a challenge.
A more user-friendly interface and better management consoles with improved documentation could be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon MSK is cost-effective for large workloads but can be expensive for smaller use cases, needing careful evaluation.
Apache Kafka is open-source, but additional provider services can be costly, varying by needs and exceeding 100,000 euros annually.
Once we started using Kafka, our cloud costs rose by 50% to 60%.
The open-source version of Apache Kafka results in minimal costs, mainly linked to accessing documentation and limited support.
Its pricing is reasonable.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon MSK offers seamless AWS integration, cost-efficiency, simplified setup, and reliable performance for CDC pipelines and asynchronous data collection.
Apache Kafka excels in real-time data streaming, scalability, integration, resilience, and handling large volumes with robust message retention.
The scalability and usability are quite remarkable.
Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing.
It allows the use of data in motion, allowing data to propagate from one source to another while it is in motion.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon MSK
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
5th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Kafka
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon MSK is 7.7%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Kafka is 2.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

FNU AKSHANSH - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines our processes, and we don't need to configure any VPCs; it's automatic
We don't have many use cases involving ingesting large amounts of data and scaling up and down. We have a clear understanding of our data volume, which remains relatively constant throughout the week. While we're aware of other features Amazon MSK offers, we feel confident in our current setup. If our requirements change significantly in the future, we'll reassess our needs and consider adopting Amazon MSK.
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Data streaming transforms real-time data movement with impressive scalability
I worked with Apache Kafka for customers in the financial industry and OTT platforms. They use Kafka particularly for data streaming. Companies offering movie and entertainment as a service, similar to Netflix, use Kafka Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming. It allows the use of data in…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon MSK?
Amazon MSK has significantly improved our organization by building seamless integration between systems.
What needs improvement with Amazon MSK?
The cost of using Amazon MSK is high, which is a significant disadvantage, as the increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings. There were no other notable issues.
What is your primary use case for Amazon MSK?
We used Amazon MSK to manage high-volume third-party data entering our system. It served as a buffer when our system was unable to consume data at high speeds in real-time. The data initially went ...
What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
What do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MSK vs. Apache Kafka and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.