Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 (7th)
IBM Event Streams
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (9th)
 

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 3.8%, up 2.2% compared to last year.
IBM Event Streams, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 2.0% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.8%
Apache Flink12.3%
Databricks10.0%
Other73.9%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Event Streams2.0%
IBM MQ22.5%
ActiveMQ22.4%
Other53.1%
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

"I appreciate that Apache Kafka is fast and secure thanks to implementing it with AWS, allowing me to secure it on a high level."
"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."
"We get amazing throughput. We don't get any delay."
"For example, when you want to send a message to inform all your clients about a new feature, you can publish that message to a single topic in Apache Kafka. This allows all clients subscribed to that topic to receive the message. On the other hand, if you need to send billing information to a specific customer, you can publish that message on a topic dedicated to that customer. This message can then be sent as an SMS to the customer, allowing them to view it on their mobile device."
"The open-source version is relatively straightforward to set up and only takes a few minutes."
"Kafka is an open-source tool that's easy to use in our country, and the command line interface is powerful."
"Robust and delivers messages quickly."
"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"The stability has been good."
 

Cons

"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."
"More adapters for connecting to different systems need to be available."
"There have been some challenges with monitoring Apache Kafka, as there are currently only a few production-grade solutions available, which are all under enterprise license and therefore not easily accessible. The speaker has not had access to any of these solutions and has instead relied on tools, such as Dynatrace, which do not provide sufficient insight into the Apache Kafka system. While there are other tools available, they do not offer the same level of real-time data as enterprise solutions."
"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."
"Apache Kafka can improve by providing a UI for monitoring. There are third-party tools that can do it, but it would be nice if it was already embedded within Apache Kafka."
"Lacks elasticity and the ability to scale down."
"The third party is not very stable and sometimes you have problems with this component. There are some developments in newer versions and we're about to try them out, but I'm not sure if it closes the gap."
"One of the things I am mostly looking for is that once the message is picked up from Kafka, it should not be visible or able to be consumed by other applications, or something along those lines. That feature is not present, but it is not a limitation or anything of the sort; rather, it is a desirable feature. The next release should include a feature that prevents messages from being consumed by other applications once they are picked up by Kafka."
"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."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"This is an open-source version."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"Apache Kafka is an open-sourced solution. There are fees if you want the support, and I would recommend it for enterprises. There are annual subscriptions available."
"The solution is open source."
"The price of the solution is low."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The platform is averagely priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise49
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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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 do you like most about IBM Event Streams?
The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Event Streams?
The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Event Streams?
The product's interface needs improvement. Additionally, there could be a management console to create and manage clusters.
 

Comparisons

 

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.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.