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Apache Kafka vs IBM Event Streams comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (6th)
IBM Event Streams
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and IBM Event Streams aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 4.1%, up 2.5% compared to last year.
IBM Event Streams, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 2.5% mindshare, up 1.0% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.1%
Apache Flink9.8%
Databricks8.2%
Other77.9%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Event Streams2.5%
IBM MQ21.7%
ActiveMQ20.5%
Other55.3%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Bruno da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
Have worked closely with the team to deploy streaming and transaction pipelines in a flexible cloud environment
The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better. I started working with Apache Kafka from its early days, and I have seen many improvements. The back office functionality could be enhanced. Scaling up continues to be a challenge, though it is much easier now than it was in the beginning.
Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at areebah
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to set up."
"This is a system for email and other small devices. There has been a relay of transactions continuously over the last two years it has been in production."
"The valuable features are the group community and support."
"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."
"The most valuable feature is the documentation, which is good and clear."
"Apache Kafka is one of the best open-source solutions that are available today."
"It has become dead simple to connect different application and services, saving a lot of development hours."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good, making it a very useful solution for financial institutions."
"I am happy with the product, other than pricing I don't have any other improvements that I can suggest."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"The stability has been good."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
 

Cons

"The management overhead is more compared to the messaging system. There are challenges here and there, like for long usage, it requires restarts and nodes from time to time."
"We struggled a bit with the built-in data transformations because it was a challenge to get them up and running the way we wanted."
"The only reason I give Kafka as product a low rating is because there are far superior and cheaper alternatives in cloud-based solutions, where we save money on manpower, electricity, servers, datacenters, networking, etc."
"We used to have problems in Kafka every three weeks and our dev ops team fixed a few issues."
"The support on Apache Kafka could be improved."
"Kafka requires non-trivial expertise with DevOps to deploy in production at scale. The organization needs to understand ZooKeeper and Kafka and should consider using additional tools, such as MirrorMaker, so that the organization can survive an availability zone or a region going down."
"I suggest using cloud services because the solution is expensive if you are using it on-premises."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"The price of the solution is low."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. For on-premise, there is an annual fee, which starts at 60,000 euros, but it is usually higher than 100,000 euros. The cost for a project including the subscription is usually between 100,000 to 200,000 euros. The cost also depends on the level of support. There are two different levels of support."
"We use the free version."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"Apache Kafka has an open-source pricing."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The platform is averagely priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise50
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 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.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
The long-term data storage feature in Apache Kafka depends on the setting, but I believe the maximum duration is seven days.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
American Airlines, UBank, Bitly, Eurobits, Active International, Bison, Contextor, Constance Hotels, Resorts & Golf, Creval, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, FaceMe, FacePhi, Fitzsoft, Fuga Technologies, Guardio, Honeywell, Japanese airline, Jenzabar, KONE
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. IBM Event Streams and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.