Amazon MSK vs Apache Pulsar comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Pulsar are both solutions in the Streaming Analytics category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.4, while Pulsar is ranked #19. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.8% mindshare in SA, compared to Pulsar’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pulsar users who would recommend it.

Amazon MSK

Read 12 Amazon MSK reviews

3,245 Views
2,334 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Apache Pulsar

Read 1 Apache Pulsar review

843 Views
534 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon MSK

Apache Pulsar

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon MSK and Apache Pulsar based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and others in Streaming Analytics.

To learn more, read our detailed Streaming Analytics Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Streaming Analytics

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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

Amazon MSK

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

6th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Apache Pulsar

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon MSK is 6.8%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

FNU AKSHANSH

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

Streamlines our processes, and we don't need to configure any VPCs; it's automatic

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.

Read full review

it_user1087029

Solution Architect at Vlaanderen connect.

The solution can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code

The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform. It operates differently than a traditional streaming platform with storage and computing handled separately. It scales easier and better than Kafka which can be stubborn. You can even make it act like Kafka because it understands Kafka APIs. There are even companies that will sell you Kafka but underneath it is Apache Pulsar. The solution is very compatible because it can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable product."

"The scalability and usability are quite remarkable."

"The solution's technical support was helpful."

"Amazon MSK has good integration because our team has been undergoing significant changes. Coupling it with MSK within AWS is helpful. We don't have to set up additionals or monitor external environments. This"

"MSK has a private network that's an out-of-box feature."

"It offers good stability."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon MSK is the integration."

"Amazon MSK's scalability is very good."

More Amazon MSK pros

"The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform."

Cons

"The configuration seems a little complex and the documentation on the product is not available."

"In my opinion, there are areas in Amazon MSK that could be improved, particularly in terms of configuration. Initially setting it up and getting it connected was quite challenging. The naming conventions for policies were updated by AWS, and some were undocumented, leading to confusion with outdated materials. It took us weeks of trial and error before discovering new methods through hidden tutorials and official documentation."

"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."

"We need to create connectors in Amazon MSK, but there are no default connectors in AWS for that purpose."

"One of the reasons why we prefer Kafka is because the support is a little bit difficult to manage with Amazon MSK."

"The product's schema support needs enhancement. It will help enhance integration with many kinds of languages of programming languages, especially for environments using languages like .NET."

"It would be really helpful if Amazon MSK could provide a single installation that covers all the servers."

"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."

More Amazon MSK cons

"Documentation is poor because much of it is in Chinese with no English translation."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform has better pricing than one of its competitors."

"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 price of Amazon MSK is less than some competitor solutions, such as Confluence."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon MSK?

Amazon MSK has significantly improved our organization by building seamless integration between systems.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon MSK?

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. There were no other notable issues.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon MSK?

We used Amazon MSK to manage high-volume third-party data entering our system. It served as a buffer when our system was unable to consume data at high speeds in real-time. The data initially went ...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Azure Stream Analytics vs Amazon MSK

Compared 34% of the time

Confluent vs Amazon MSK

Compared 20% of the time

Apache Flink vs Amazon MSK

Compared 13% of the time

Google Cloud Dataflow vs Amazon MSK

Compared 8% of the time

Aiven Platform vs Amazon MSK

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon MSK Competitors

Apache Flink vs Apache Pulsar

Compared 36% of the time

Apache Spark Streaming vs Apache Pulsar

Compared 18% of the time

Redpanda vs Apache Pulsar

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon Kinesis vs Apache Pulsar

Compared 8% of the time

More Apache Pulsar Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MSK

June 2025

Download Amazon MSK product report

Buyer's Guide

Streaming Analytics

June 2025

Download Apache Pulsar product report

Also Known As

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka

No data available

Overview

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Apache Pulsar is a cloud-native, distributed messaging and streaming platform originally created at Yahoo! and now a top-level Apache Software Foundation project

Pulsar

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Information Not Available

Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Streaming Analytics vendors.

We monitor all Streaming Analytics reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.