Confluent and Amazon MSK are competitive solutions in the event streaming market. While Confluent shines in support and pricing, Amazon MSK has an edge in features and perceived value.
Features: Confluent offers enterprise-grade security, enhanced management tools, and multi-cloud capabilities. Amazon MSK provides seamless integration with AWS services and supports Apache Kafka's native tools, enhancing operational efficiency. Confluent’s security measures and multi-cloud features stand out, yet Amazon MSK’s AWS integration is ideal for enterprises using AWS.
Room for Improvement: Confluent could improve in integrating more seamlessly with non-Kafka ecosystems and enhancing cost predictability for AWS users. Amazon MSK might work on extending support beyond AWS environments and expanding its management interfaces. Both solutions could benefit from increased flexibility in deployment options and reducing learning curves for new users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Confluent is known for its comprehensive deployment model and extensive support, simplifying Kafka management. Amazon MSK offers seamless AWS service integration, streamlining deployment for AWS-focused organizations. Confluent's support is advantageous for managing complex deployments, while Amazon MSK reduces challenges through AWS integration.
Pricing and ROI: Confluent features flexible pricing that enables efficient scaling with predictable costs. Amazon MSK offers cost-effective integration for AWS users, potentially improving ROI through streamlined billing and advantageous AWS service bundling. While Confluent provides predictable scaling, Amazon MSK's embedded AWS cost structure might offer better ROI for businesses deeply invested in AWS.
Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) is a fully managed service that enables you to build and run applications that use Apache Kafka to process streaming data. Amazon MSK provides the control-plane operations, such as those for creating, updating, and deleting clusters.
Confluent is an enterprise-ready, full-scale streaming platform that enhances Apache Kafka.
Confluent has integrated cutting-edge features that are designed to enhance these tasks:
Confluent is a more complete distribution of Kafka in that it enhances the integration possibilities of Kafka by introducing tools for managing and optimizing Kafka clusters while providing methods for making sure the streams are secure. Confluent supports publish-and-subscribe as well as the storing and processing of data within the streams. Kafka is easier to operate and build thanks to Confluent.
Confluent's software is available in three different varieties:
Confluent Advantage Features
Confluent has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
Reviews from Real Users
Confluent stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust enterprise support and its open source option. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:
Ravi B., a solutions architect at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “KSQL is a valuable feature, as is the Kafka Connect framework for connecting to the various source systems where you need not write the code. We get great support from Confluent because we're using the enterprise version and whenever there's a problem, they support us with fine-tuning and finding the root cause.”
Amit S., an IT consultant, notes, “The biggest benefit is that it is open source. You have the flexibility of opting or not opting for enterprise support, even though the tool itself is open source.” He adds, “The second benefit is it's very modern and built on Java and Scala. You can extend the features very well, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.”
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