No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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 valuable features are the group community and support."
"In our current position, we use it to move a lot of data and I think it's definitely working well."
"Apache Kafka is very fast and stable."
"With Kafka, events and streaming are persistent, and multiple subscribers can consume the data. This is an advantage of Kafka compared to simple queue-based solutions."
"Apache Kafka has helped out the organization because we leverage it for all our eCommerce real-time analytics use cases."
"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."
"Kafka was at the base of our system architecture."
"With such a large digest, I was genuinely impressed at the process being almost real-time."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"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 triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good, making it a very useful solution for financial institutions."
"The stability has been good."
 

Cons

"The interface has room for improvement, and there is a steep learning curve for Hadoop integration. It was a struggle learning to send from Hadoop to Kafka. In future releases, I'd like to see improvements in ETL functionality and Hadoop integration."
"When we have thousands of topics, it is hard to visualize."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"In the next release, I would like for there to be some authorization features and HTL security; we also need bigger software and better monitoring."
"When compared to other commercial competitors, Kafka doesn't have the ability to scale down, the elasticity is lacking in the product."
"Kafka is complex and there is a little bit of a learning curve."
"Data pulling and restart ability need improving."
"In the next release, I would like for there to be some authorization and HTL security."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"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."
"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

"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"The price of the solution is low."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"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."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"The platform is averagely priced."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software 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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.