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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

"It's a high-performance distributed system."
"Supports more than 10,000 events/second, scalability, and replication, and it is a good product for event-driven architecture."
"Kafka was at the base of our system architecture."
"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."
"Kafka is good, but Kafka as a cloud service is awesome!!"
"Kafka is an open-source tool that's easy to use in our country, and the command line interface is powerful."
"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."
"When comparing it with other messaging and integration platforms, this is one of the best rated."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"I am happy with the product, other than pricing I don't have any other improvements that I can suggest."
"The stability has been good."
"The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good, making it a very useful solution for financial institutions."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
 

Cons

"I would like to see real-time event-based consumption of messages rather than the traditional way through a loop."
"Something that could be improved is having an interface to monitor the consuming rate."
"When compared to other commercial competitors, Kafka doesn't have the ability to scale down, the elasticity is lacking in the product."
"Prioritization of messages in Apache Kafka could improve."
"The user interface is one weakness. Sometimes, our data isn't as accessible as we'd like. It takes a lot of work to retrieve the data and the index."
"As an open-source project, Kafka is still fairly young and has not yet built out the stability and features that other open-source projects have acquired over the many years."
"The solution could always add a few more features to enhance its usage."
"The solution can improve its cloud support."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"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 pricing needs to be improved."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"It's a bit cheaper compared to other Q applications."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"I was using the product's free version."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"The cost can vary depending on the provider and the specific flavor or version you use. I'm not very knowledgeable about the pricing details."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"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.
886,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.