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

Confluent vs IBM App Connect 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

Confluent
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (4th)
IBM App Connect
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Gustavo-Barbosa Dos Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good technical support services and a valuable feature for real-time data streaming
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 automate the tasks using Confluent Kafka. Thus, it guarantees us the data quality and maintains the integrity of message contracts.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexible adapters, good scalability but logging can be difficult at times
There is room for improvement in the logging messages. Sometimes, if you put someone new into App Connect, they can abandon it the same day. The logging is really painful. However, IBM has made efforts to integrate with Elasticsearch for logging, so that's an improvement. Overall, the logging can be difficult at times. One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient. Back in 2013, I worked with Sonic ESB, and even then, it had CI/CD with Maven. With App Connect, you need to build everything yourself when using tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, or CircleCI. IBM really needs to provide official support for this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best features of Confluent is that it's very easy to search and have a live status with Jira."
"The solution can handle a high volume of data because it works and scales well."
"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."
"Kafka Connect framework is valuable for connecting to the various source systems where code doesn't need to be written."
"The client APIs are the most valuable feature."
"We mostly use the solution's message queues and event-driven architecture."
"The benefit is escaping email communication. Sometimes people ignore emails or put them into spam, but with Confluence, everyone sees the same text at the same time."
"The most valuable feature of Confluent is the wide range of features provided. They're leading the market in this category."
"I recommend IBM App Connect Enterprise to everyone."
"I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's likely an adapter for that."
"It has an efficient design flow."
"It's a powerful application for collaboration. It has many features for customization and integration."
"It has different type of interfaces that can integrate with companies."
"Very scalable, flexible, and user-friendly."
"Technical support is good."
"I would say that the most valuable feature is the array of connectors and integration tools."
 

Cons

"It could be more user-friendly and centralized. A way to reduce redundancy would be helpful."
"Currently, in the early stages, I see a gap on the security side. If you are using the SaaS version, we would like to get a fuller, more secure solution that can be adopted right out of the box. Confluence could do a better job sharing best practices or a reusable pattern that others have used, especially for companies that can not afford to hire professional services from Confluent."
"We continuously face issues, such as Kafka being down and slow responses from the support team."
"Confluence could improve the server version of the solution. However, most companies are going to the cloud."
"Confluent has a good monitoring tool, but it's not customizable."
"Confluent's price needs improvement."
"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."
"The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful."
"The user interface of IBM App Connect can be a little bit more user-friendly, I would say because the first-time developer is onboarded while using IBM App Connect, he or she may get a little intimidated or daunted looking at all the options available or the pipelines, et cetera."
"One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient."
"The setup time for App Connect could be improved."
"The product should improve its support."
"When we do a version upgrade of the system, the platform is kind of complicated."
"In the next release, I would like to get some quality connectors."
"The addition of string functionality would be a benefit, particularly in the ESQL space that IBM already uses internally."
"IBM App Connect should improve security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Confluent is an expensive solution."
"Confluent is highly priced."
"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."
"You have to pay additional for one or two features."
"Confluence's pricing is quite reasonable, with a cost of around $10 per user that decreases as the number of users increases. Additionally, it's worth noting that for teams of up to 10 users, the solution is completely free."
"Confluent is an expensive solution as we went for a three contract and it was very costly for us."
"Confluent has a yearly license, which is a bit high because it's on a per-user basis."
"It comes with a high cost."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"The price could be better."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
They charge a lot for scaling, which makes it expensive.
What needs improvement with Confluent?
I am not very impressed by Confluent. We continuously face issues, such as Kafka being down and slow responses from the support team. The lack of easy access to the Confluent support team is also a...
What do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
I have been using IBM App Connect for application integration.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Cast Iron
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost
United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Confluent vs. IBM App Connect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.