Apache Spark Streaming vs Confluent comparison

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Apache Spark Streaming

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Spark Streaming and Confluent based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Streaming Analytics solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Spark Streaming vs. Confluent Report (Updated: October 2024).

Apache Spark Streaming vs. Confluent

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Apache Spark Streaming

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Confluent

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Spark Streaming is 3.7%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Confluent is 9.4%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

Oscar Estorach

Chief Data-strategist and Director at Theworkshop.es

Jan 25, 2024

Versatile and flexible when dealing with large-scale data streams

What I like about Spark is its versatility in supporting multiple languages and that makes it my preferred choice for building scalable and efficient systems, whether it is hooking databases with web applications or handling large-scale data transformations. Apache Spark Streaming is versatile. You can use it for competitive intelligence, gathering data from competitors, or for internal tasks like monitoring workflows. It works well in the cloud, and you can structure data using Databricks or Spark, providing flexibility for different projects. Spark Streaming's flexibility shines when dealing with large-scale data streams. It caters to different needs, offering real-time insights for tasks like online sales analytics. The ability to prioritize data streams is valuable, especially for monitoring competitor prices online.

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Gustavo-Barbosa Dos Santos

Software Architect at C&A Brasil

Jan 8, 2024

Has good technical support services and a valuable feature for real-time data streaming

We use the product to store and govern the data Implementing Confluent's schema registry has significantly enhanced our organization's data quality assurance. It helps us understand the various requirements of multiple customers and validates the information for different versions. We can…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's the fastest solution on the market with low latency data on data transformations."

"Apache Spark Streaming's most valuable feature is near real-time analytics. The developers can build APIs easily for a code-steaming pipeline. The solutions have an ecosystem of integration with other stock services."

"The platform’s most valuable feature for processing real-time data is its ability to handle continuous data streams."

"The solution is very stable and reliable."

"Apache Spark Streaming has features like checkpointing and Streaming API that are useful."

"Apache Spark Streaming is versatile. You can use it for competitive intelligence, gathering data from competitors, or for internal tasks like monitoring workflows."

"The solution is better than average and some of the valuable features include efficiency and stability."

"Apache Spark Streaming was straightforward in terms of maintenance. It was actively developed, and migrating from an older to a newer version was quite simple."

More Apache Spark Streaming pros

"Kafka Connect framework is valuable for connecting to the various source systems where code doesn't need to be written."

"We mostly use the solution's message queues and event-driven architecture."

"The most valuable feature that we are using is the data replication between the data centers allowing us to configure a disaster recovery or software. However, is it's not mandatory to use and because most of the features that we use are from Apache Kafka, such as end-to-end encryption. Internally, we can develop our own kind of product or service from Apache Kafka."

"The most valuable is its capability to enhance the documentation process, particularly when creating software documentation."

"The monitoring module is impressive."

"With Confluent Cloud we no longer need to handle the infrastructure and the plumbing, which is a concern for Confluent. The other advantage is that all portfolios have access to the data that is being shared."

"I would rate the scalability of the solution at eight out of ten. We have 20 people who use Confluent in our organization now, and we hope to increase usage in the future."

"I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and tools."

More Confluent pros

Cons

"The cost and load-related optimizations are areas where the tool lacks and needs improvement."

"The debugging aspect could use some improvement."

"It was resource-intensive, even for small-scale applications."

"We would like to have the ability to do arbitrary stateful functions in Python."

"Integrating event-level streaming capabilities could be beneficial."

"There could be an improvement in the area of the user configuration section, it should be less developer-focused and more business user-focused."

"The initial setup is quite complex."

"The solution itself could be easier to use."

More Apache Spark Streaming cons

"They should remove Zookeeper because of security issues."

"The pricing model should include the ability to pick features and be charged for them only."

"In Confluent, there could be a few more VPN options."

"The product should integrate tools for incorporating diagrams like Lucidchart. It also needs to improve its formatting features. We also faced issues while granting permissions."

"It could be improved by including a feature that automatically creates a new topic and puts failed messages."

"It could have more themes. They should also have more reporting-oriented plugins as well. It would be great to have free custom reports that can be dispatched directly from Jira."

"There is a limitation when it comes to seamlessly importing Microsoft documents into Confluent pages, which can be inconvenient for users who frequently work with Microsoft Office tools and need to transition their content to Confluent."

"The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful."

More Confluent cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive, or not cost-effective, and ten is cheap, I rate the price a seven."

"Spark is an affordable solution, especially considering its open-source nature."

"I was using the open-source community version, which was self-hosted."

"People pay for Apache Spark Streaming as a service."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate Confluent's pricing at five. I have not encountered any additional costs."

"The solution is cheaper than other products."

"Regarding pricing, I think Confluent is a premium product, but it's hard for me to say definitively if it's overly expensive. We're still trying to understand if the features and reduced maintenance complexity justify the cost, especially as we scale our platform use."

"Confluent is an expensive solution as we went for a three contract and it was very costly for us."

"You have to pay additional for one or two features."

"The pricing model of Confluent could improve because if you have a classic use case where you're going to use all the features there is no plan to reduce the features. You should be able to pick and choose basic services at a reduced price. The pricing was high for our needs. We should not have to pay for features we do not use."

"It comes with a high cost."

"Confluent is highly priced."

More Confluent pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

20%

University

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Spark Streaming?

Apache Spark Streaming is versatile. You can use it for competitive intelligence, gathering data from competitors, or for internal tasks like monitoring workflows.

What needs improvement with Apache Spark Streaming?

The product's event handling capabilities, particularly compared to Kaspersky, need improvement. Integrating event-level streaming capabilities could be beneficial. This aligns with the idea of exp...

What is your primary use case for Apache Spark Streaming?

I've used it more for ETL. It's useful for creating data pipelines, streaming datasets, generating synthetic data, synchronizing data, creating data lakes, and loading and unloading data is fast an...

What do you like most about Confluent?

I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and to...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Confluent?

Regarding pricing, I think Confluent is a premium product, but it's hard for me to say definitively if it's overly expensive. We're still trying to understand if the features and reduced maintenanc...

What needs improvement with Confluent?

One area we've identified that could be improved is the governance and access control to the Kafka topics. We've found some limitations, like a threshold of 10,000 rules per cluster, that make it c...

Spring Cloud Data Flow vs Apache Spark Streaming

Comparisons

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Amazon Kinesis vs Apache Spark Streaming

Compared 19% of the time

Apache Pulsar vs Apache Spark Streaming

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Stream Analytics vs Apache Spark Streaming

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon MSK vs Apache Spark Streaming

Compared 4% of the time

More Apache Spark Streaming Competitors

Amazon Kinesis vs Confluent

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon MSK vs Confluent

Compared 13% of the time

Databricks vs Confluent

Compared 7% of the time

AWS Glue vs Confluent

Compared 5% of the time

Fivetran vs Confluent

Compared 4% of the time

More Confluent Competitors

Product Reports

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Streaming Analytics

October 2024

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November 2024

Also Known As

Spark Streaming

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Learn More

Apache

Overview

Spark Streaming makes it easy to build scalable fault-tolerant streaming applications.

Confluent is an enterprise-ready, full-scale streaming platform that enhances Apache Kafka.

Confluent has integrated cutting-edge features that are designed to enhance these tasks:

Speed up application development and connectivity
Enable transformations through stream processing
Streamline business operations at scale
Adhere to strict architectural standards

Confluent is a more complete distribution of Kafka in that it enhances the integration possibilities of Kafka by introducing tools for managing and optimizing Kafka clusters while providing methods for making sure the streams are secure. Confluent supports publish-and-subscribe as well as the storing and processing of data within the streams. Kafka is easier to operate and build thanks to Confluent.

Confluent's software is available in three different varieties:

A free, open-source streaming platform that makes it simple to start using real-time data streams
An enterprise-grade version of the product with more administrative, ops, and monitoring tools
A premium cloud-based version.

Confluent Advantage Features

Confluent has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Multi-language
- Clients: C++, Python, Go, and .NET
- REST proxy: Can connect to Kafka from any connected network device
- Admin REST APIs: RESTful interface for performing administrator operations

Pre-built ecosystem
- Connectors: More than 100 supported connectors, including S3, Elastic, HDFS, JDBC
- MQTT proxy: Gain access to Kafka from MQTT gateways and devices
- Schema registry: Centralized database to guarantee data compatibility

Streaming database
- ksqlDB: Materialized views and real-time stream processing

GUI management
- Control panel: GUI for scalable Kafka management and monitoring
- Health+: Smart alerts and cloud-based control centers

DevOps automation that is flexible
- Confluent for Kubernetes: Complete API to deploy on Kubernetes
- Automated Ansible deployment on non-containerized environments

Dynamic performance
- Self-balancing clusters: Automated partition re-balancing across brokers in the cluster
- Tiered storage: Older Kafka data offloading to object storage with transparent access

Security that is enterprise-grade
- Role-based access control: Granular user/group access authorization
- Audit logs that are structured: Logs of user actions kept in dedicated Kafka topics
- Secret protection: Sensitive information is encrypted

Global resilience
- Linking clusters: A real-time, highly reliable, and consistent bridge across on-premises and cloud environments
- Multiple-region clusters: Single Kafka cluster with automated client failover distributed across multiple data centers
- Replicator: Asynchronous replication that is based on the Kafka Connect framework

Support
- Round the clock enterprise support from Kafka experts

Reviews from Real Users

Confluent stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust enterprise support and its open source option. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Ravi B., a solutions architect at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “KSQL is a valuable feature, as is the Kafka Connect framework for connecting to the various source systems where you need not write the code. We get great support from Confluent because we're using the enterprise version and whenever there's a problem, they support us with fine-tuning and finding the root cause.”

Amit S., an IT consultant, notes, “The biggest benefit is that it is open source. You have the flexibility of opting or not opting for enterprise support, even though the tool itself is open source.” He adds, “The second benefit is it's very modern and built on Java and Scala. You can extend the features very well, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.”

Sample Customers

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, eBay Inc.

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost