Amazon MSK Reviews

Name: Amazon MSK
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 3.7 (11 reviews)

3.7 out of 5

11 reviews
90% willing to recommend

What is Amazon MSK?

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) is a fully managed service that enables you to build and run applications that use Apache Kafka to process streaming data. Amazon MSK provides the control-plane operations, such as those for creating, updating, and deleting clusters.

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Amazon MSK is the #7 ranked solution in Streaming Analytics tools. PeerSpot users give Amazon MSK an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. Amazon MSK is most commonly compared to Databricks: Amazon MSK vs Databricks. Amazon MSK is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 69% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 23% of all views.

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Featured Amazon MSK reviews

FNU AKSHANSH

Senior Data Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

We don't have many use cases involving ingesting large amounts of data and scaling up and down. We have a clear understanding of our data volume, which remains relatively constant throughout the week. While we're aware of other features Amazon MSK offers, we feel confident in our current setup. If our requirements change significantly in the future, we'll reassess our needs and consider adopting Amazon MSK.

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AnkurShukla

SDE at Mindtickle

Amazon MSK's features that have proven most effective for handling large volumes of data stem from the fact that it acts as Kafka's underlying capability to support millions of rides per minute, and it is what helps us scale very easily. Amazon MSK's scalability impacts our data processing tasks, and one thing for sure is that it's a highly scalable system. Usually, we don't see any challenges because it supports millions of rides per minute with Kafka underlying. One challenge is if you want to scale it out by adding new nodes or brokers. People should finalize the number of partitions before they start using MSK and create a topic because changing partitions is quite challenging. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

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Gustavo-Barbosa Dos Santos

Software Architect at C&A Brasil

We use the software to facilitate building integrations between systems Amazon MSK has significantly improved our organization by building seamless integration between systems. The product's schema support needs enhancement. It will help enhance integration with many kinds of languages of…

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Amazon MSK mindshare

As of May 2025, the mindshare of Amazon MSK in the Streaming Analytics category stands at 7.3%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics

PeerResearch reports based on Amazon MSK reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Streaming Analytics	May 20, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon MSK vs Databricks	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon MSK vs Amazon Kinesis	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon MSK vs Azure Stream Analytics	May 20, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Databricks	4.1	14.6%	96%	90 interviews Add to research
Confluent	4.1	8.2%	95%	23 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Amazon MSK stands out for its integration, cost-effectiveness, and automation. Its seamless coupling within the AWS environment with no need for VPC configuration enhances team operations. Users appreciate its separation of concerns, enabling easy access to messages. It is praised for installation and scalability, reducing human intervention. Its stability and minimal performance issues are noted. Cost benefits over Kinesis Data are highlighted, especially for large workflows and support for smaller workloads.

"The scalability and usability are quite remarkable."
"It provides installations, scaling, and other functionalities straight out of the box."
"Amazon MSK's scalability is very good."

Room for Improvement

Amazon MSK faces integration challenges due to complex networking setups and lacks schema support compared to competitors like Confluent. Users find configuration difficult, with operational overhead in contrast to services like Kinesis, and the cost is considered high. Installation processes need streamlining across servers. Documentation improvements are necessary due to outdated guidance. Scaling is difficult, particularly horizontal scaling and message size limitations, while users seek command line installation options for more flexibility across platforms.

"The cost of using Amazon MSK is high, which is a significant disadvantage, as the increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings."
"The cost of using Amazon MSK is high, which is a significant disadvantage, as the increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings."
"One of the reasons why we prefer Kafka is because the support is a little bit difficult to manage with Amazon MSK."

ROI

Amazon MSK offers a return on investment by reducing integration time and enhancing innovation speed. Users save costs through a pay-as-you-go model, unlike fixed costs with Confluent. Testing and adaptation processes benefit from flexibility, reducing both time and expenses. For handling large data volumes, performance remains efficient without major problems. However, despite some financial savings, a significant cost increase of 60% is noted, challenging the balance against the benefit.

Pricing

Amazon MSK pricing generally appears more favorable compared to some competitors like Confluent, though perceptions of cost vary based on usage levels. Small-scale use cases find it pricey, yet for larger workloads, costs can be more justified. Users mention a $50 monthly licensing fee, noting that for enterprise-scale deployments, costs become comparable with competitors. A shift to Amazon MSK has led to significant cloud cost increases for some, highlighting varied experiences among users.

"When you create a complete enterprise-driven architecture that is deployable on an enterprise scale, I would say that the prices of Amazon MSK and Confluent Platform become comparable."
"The platform has better pricing than one of its competitors."
"The price of Amazon MSK is less than some competitor solutions, such as Confluence."

Popular Use Cases

Organizations primarily use Amazon MSK to manage data streaming for various purposes. Companies employ it to collect inventory data, facilitate system integrations, handle real-time transactions, and manage customized order data in the retail sector. Amazon MSK also supports change data capture processes, enables communication and notifications, and buffers high-volume third-party data. Additionally, firms rely on it to asynchronously collect data from databases and systems, enhancing data distribution across their infrastructure.

Service and Support

Customer service and support for Amazon MSK are varied. Some users find the assistance knowledgeable and helpful, especially for configuration issues. While others appreciate helpful responses, they notice a decline in expertise over the years. Response time is often praised. Support quality depends on the plan, with ratings between six and ten out of ten. Although some users suggest improvements, many emphasize Amazon's availability and helpfulness for technical inquiries.

Deployment

Users found Amazon MSK's initial setup to be mostly straightforward, especially for those familiar with Kafka, taking less than ten minutes for small clusters. Some noted technical challenges requiring collaboration with networking teams. Experienced users appreciated its ease via AWS commands. Setup times varied, with some installations taking weeks due to complex networking configurations. For many, it was a hassle-free process, even involving only one engineer for deployment.

Scalability

Amazon MSK is regarded as scalable by numerous users, although manual configuration may be necessary for optimal scaling. Despite some operational overhead, its cluster-based nature ensures effective scaling. Users appreciate its functionality, with AWS serverless options enhancing ease of use. While some reported challenges, many rate its scalability positively, citing performance and adaptability. The consensus highlights strong scaling capabilities, beneficial for varied team sizes and use cases.

Stability

Amazon MSK demonstrates stability with few issues encountered. Users note a nine out of ten rating and value its 99.9% availability. Some experienced difficulties installing log collectors on older Windows servers, prompting assistance from DuoSAPI at IBM. Despite limited usage experience mentioned by some, others remain satisfied with stability, rating it eight out of ten. Latency and performance are not concerns, confirming the positive impressions of how stable it is.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

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