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Apache Flink vs PubSub+ Platform 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Flink
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PubSub+ Platform
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (6th), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (2nd), Event Monitoring (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 12.1%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PubSub+ Platform is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Ilya Afanasyev - PeerSpot reviewer
A great solution with an intricate system and allows for batch data processing
We value this solution's intricate system because it comes with a state inside the mechanism and product. The system allows us to process batch data, stream to real-time and build pipelines. Additionally, we do not need to process data from the beginning when we pause, and we can continue from the same point where we stopped. It helps us save time as 95% of our pipelines will now be on Amazon, and we'll save money by saving time.
BhanuChidigam - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs well, high availability, and helpful support
We use approximately four people for the maintenance of the solution. My advice to others is this solution has high throughput and is used for many stock exchanges. For business critical use cases, such as processing financial transactions at a quick speed, I would recommend this solution. I rate PubSub+ Event Broker an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides us the flexibility to deploy it on any cluster without being constrained by cloud-based limitations."
"The top feature of Apache Flink is its low latency for fast, real-time data. Another great feature is the real-time indicators and alerts which make a big difference when it comes to data processing and analysis."
"The setup was not too difficult."
"Apache Flink is meant for low latency applications. You take one event opposite if you want to maintain a certain state. When another event comes and you want to associate those events together, in-memory state management was a key feature for us."
"With Flink, it provides out-of-the-box checkpointing and state management. It helps us in that way. When Storm used to restart, sometimes we would lose messages. With Flink, it provides guaranteed message processing, which helped us. It also helped us with maintenance or restarts."
"Allows us to process batch data, stream to real-time and build pipelines."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"The documentation is very good."
"The valuable feature of PubSub+ Event Broker is the speed of processing, publishing, and consumption."
"Some valuable features include reconnecting topics, placing queues, and direct connections to MongoDB. The platform provides a dashboard to monitor the status of messages, such as how many have been processed or delivered, which is helpful for tracking performance."
"When we went to add another installation in our private cloud, it was easy. We received support from Solace and the install was seamless with no issues."
"The way we can replicate information and send it to several subscribers is most valuable. It can be used for any kind of business where you've got multiple users who need information. Any company, such as LinkedIn, with a huge number of subscribers and any business, such as publishing, supermarket, airline, or shipping can use it."
"Guaranteed Messaging allows for us to transport messages between on-prem and the cloud without any loss of data."
"We like the seamless flexibility in protocol exchange offering without writing a code."
"The event portal and the diversity of deployment options in a hybrid landscape are the most valuable features."
"When it comes to granularity, you can literally do anything regarding how the filtering works."
 

Cons

"We have a machine learning team that works with Python, but Apache Flink does not have full support for the language."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the initial setup process."
"The state maintains checkpoints and they use RocksDB or S3. They are good but sometimes the performance is affected when you use RocksDB for checkpointing."
"Amazon's CloudFormation templates don't allow for direct deployment in the private subnet."
"Apache Flink should improve its data capability and data migration."
"In terms of stability with Flink, it is something that you have to deal with every time. Stability is the number one problem that we have seen with Flink, and it really depends on the kind of problem that you're trying to solve."
"There are more libraries that are missing and also maybe more capabilities for machine learning."
"One of the areas of improvement would be if we could tell the story a bit better about what an event mesh does or why an event mesh is foundational to a large enterprise that has a wide diversity of applications that are homegrown and a small number off the shelf."
"We've pointed out some things with the DMR piece, the event mesh, in edge cases where we could see a problem. Something like 99 percent of users wouldn't ever see this problem, but it has to do with if you get multiple bad clients sending data over a WAN, for example. That could then impact other clients."
"Some of the feature's gaps with some of the open-source vendors have been closed in a lot of ways. Being more agile and addressing those earlier could be an area for improvement."
"The deployment process is complex."
"We have requested to be able to get into the payload to do dynamic topic hierarchy building. A current workaround is using the message's header, where the business data can be put into this header and be used for a dynamic topic lookup. I want to see this in action when there are a couple of hundred cases live. E.g., how does it perform? From an administration perspective, is the ease of use there?"
"A challenge we currently have is Solace's ability to integrate with single sign-on in our Active Directory and other single sign-on tools and platforms that any company would have. It's important for the platforms to work. Typically, they support only LDAP-based connectivity to our SQL Servers."
"The ease of management could be approved. The GUI is very good, but to configure and manage these devices programmatically in the software version is not easy. For example, if I would like to spin up a new software broker, then I could in theory use the API, but it would require a considerable amount of development effort to do so. There should be a tool, or something that Solace supports, that we could use for this, e.g., a platform like Terraform where we could use infrastructure as code to configure our source appliances."
"The licensing and the cost are the major pitfalls."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
"It's an open source."
"The solution is open-source, which is free."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"I would rate the product's pricing a ten out of ten."
"The pricing and licensing were very transparent and well-communicated by our account manager."
"The licensing is dependent on the volume that is flowing. If you go for their support services, it will cost some more money, but I think it is worth it, especially if you are just starting your journey."
"We have been really happy with the product licensing rates. It has been free for us, up to a 100,000 transactions per second, and all we have to do is pay for support. Making their product available and accessible to us has not been a problem at all."
"We are looking for something that will add value and fit for purpose. Freeware is good if you want to try something quickly without putting in much money. However, as far as our decision is concerned, I don't think it helps. At the end of the day, if we are convinced that a capability is required, we will ask for the funding. Then, when the funding is available, we will go for an enterprise solution only."
"It could be cheaper. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"There are different tiers where you can choose what would work for you. As a customer, you need to know roughly how many messages a month you will use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Flink?
The product helps us to create both simple and complex data processing tasks. Over time, it has facilitated integration and navigation across multiple data sources tailored to each client's needs. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Flink?
The solution is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Apache Flink?
There are more libraries that are missing and also maybe more capabilities for machine learning. It could have a friendly user interface for pipeline configuration, deployment, and monitoring.
What do you like most about PubSub+ Event Broker?
The most valuable feature of PubSub+ Event Broker is the scaling integration. Prior to using the solution, it was done manually with a file, and it can be done instantly live.
What needs improvement with PubSub+ Event Broker?
The solution could be improved by enhancing the message pooling size for persistent messages to handle both small and large messages effectively. Additionally, providing a comprehensive dashboard t...
 

Also Known As

Flink
PubSub+ Event Broker, PubSub+ Event Portal
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.
FxPro, TP ICAP, Barclays, Airtel, American Express, Cobalt, Legal & General, LSE Group, Akuna Capital, Azure Information Technology, Brand.net, Canadian Securities Exchange, Core Transport Technologies, Crédit Agricole, Fluent Trade Technologies, Harris Corporation, Korea Exchange, Live E!, Mercuria Energy, Myspace, NYSE Technologies, Pico, RBC Capital Markets, Standard Chartered Bank, Unibet 
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Flink vs. PubSub+ Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.