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Apache Flink vs Starburst Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Flink
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Starburst Enterprise
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 13.8%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Enterprise is 3.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Aswini Atibudhi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables robust real-time data processing but documentation needs refinement
Apache Flink is very powerful, but it can be challenging for beginners because it requires prior experience with similar tools and technologies, such as Kafka and batch processing. It's essential to have a clear foundation; hence, it can be tough for beginners. However, once they grasp the concepts and have examples or references, it becomes easier. Intermediate users who are integrating with Kafka or other sources may find it smoother. After setting up and understanding the concepts, it becomes quite stable and scalable, allowing for customization of jobs. Every ( /products/every-reviews ) software, including Apache Flink, has room for improvement as it evolves. One key area for enhancement is user-friendliness and the developer experience; improving documentation and API specifications is essential, as they can currently be verbose and complex. Debugging ( /categories/debugging ) and local testing pose challenges for newcomers, particularly when learning about concepts such as time semantics and state handling. Although the APIs exist, they aren't intuitive enough. We also need to simplify operational procedures, such as developing tools and tuning Flink clusters, as these processes can be quite complex. Additionally, implementing one-click rollback for failures and improving state management during dynamic scaling while retaining the last states is vital, as the current large states pose scaling challenges.
KamleshPant - PeerSpot reviewer
Connects to any data source from any region and offers unified access
There are no specific projects supported by Starburst regarding AI initiatives or machine learning projects. In the future, if we have all the data available, we can definitely capitalize on AI/ML and LLM capabilities to summarize data and gain insights. That's our future goal, but we haven't reached that point yet. There should be support for REST API data sources to access data from the web. We often have data coming in and communicate with data sources via REST API calls. I don't see that capability in Starburst currently; everything is through JDBC or ODBC. If Starburst could seamlessly access data using REST API capabilities, it would be a game-changer. The self-service data management features, like self-service materialized views, are great, but they can be a bit complex for basic users to understand.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is user-friendly and the reporting is good."
"With Flink, it provides out-of-the-box checkpointing and state management. It helps us in that way. When Storm used to restart, sometimes we would lose messages. With Flink, it provides guaranteed message processing, which helped us. It also helped us with maintenance or restarts."
"The documentation is very good."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"Apache Flink offers a range of powerful configurations and experiences for development teams. Its strength lies in its development experience and capabilities."
"It provides us the flexibility to deploy it on any cluster without being constrained by cloud-based limitations."
"The setup was not too difficult."
"What I appreciate best about Apache Flink is that it's open source and geared towards a distributed stream processing framework."
"It's very scalable, fast performing, and supports many catalogs."
"We have noticed improvements in performance using Starburst Enterprise. It handles complex data, including reading and partitioning files. We can add a new catalog to Starburst Enterprise by providing connection details and service account information. This allows us to integrate with existing tools, such as the Snowflake database, which we use for data protection in our project."
 

Cons

"In a future release, they could improve on making the error descriptions more clear."
"We have a machine learning team that works with Python, but Apache Flink does not have full support for the language."
"In terms of improvement, there should be better reporting. You can integrate with reporting solutions but Flink doesn't offer it themselves."
"One way to improve Flink would be to enhance integration between different ecosystems. For example, there could be more integration with other big data vendors and platforms similar in scope to how Apache Flink works with Cloudera. Apache Flink is a part of the same ecosystem as Cloudera, and for batch processing it's actually very useful but for real-time processing there could be more development with regards to the big data capabilities amongst the various ecosystems out there."
"Apache Flink should improve its data capability and data migration."
"Amazon's CloudFormation templates don't allow for direct deployment in the private subnet."
"There are more libraries that are missing and also maybe more capabilities for machine learning."
"The machine learning library is not very flexible."
"There should be support for REST API data sources to access data from the web."
"Starburst Enterprise could improve by offering additional features similar to those provided by other SQL query tools. For example, incorporating functionalities like pivot tables would make it more feasible to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
"It's an open source."
"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
"The solution is open-source, which is free."
"I haven't personally dealt with the pricing aspects first-hand, but from what I understand, it largely depends on the specifics of your setup, especially the machines you use on AWS. The cost of using Starburst Enterprise can vary based on the amount of data you're processing and the type of machines you opt for, whether on AWS or another cloud platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Flink?
The product helps us to create both simple and complex data processing tasks. Over time, it has facilitated integration and navigation across multiple data sources tailored to each client's needs. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Flink?
The solution is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Apache Flink?
Apache should provide more examples and sample code related to streaming to help me better adapt and utilize the tool. There is a need for increased awareness and education, especially around best ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Enterprise?
I haven't personally dealt with the pricing aspects first-hand, but from what I understand, it largely depends on the specifics of your setup, especially the machines you use on AWS. The cost of us...
What needs improvement with Starburst Enterprise?
There are no specific projects supported by Starburst regarding AI initiatives or machine learning projects. In the future, if we have all the data available, we can definitely capitalize on AI/ML ...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Enterprise?
We use Starburst with one client who is exploring their ecosystem to remove data silos and enable data access across departments. It's a very big ecosystem, like a finance institute. They are curre...
 

Also Known As

Flink
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Flink vs. Starburst Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.