Apache Kafka vs Apache Pulsar comparison

Apache and Pulsar are both solutions in the Streaming Analytics category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.5, while Pulsar is ranked #22. Apache holds a 3.8% mindshare in SA, compared to Pulsar’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pulsar users who would recommend it.

Apache Kafka

Read 90 Apache Kafka reviews

4,150 Views
996 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Apache Pulsar

Read 1 Apache Pulsar review

712 Views
712 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Apache Kafka

Apache Pulsar

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Kafka 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Streaming Analytics

January 2026

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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 Kafka

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Apache Pulsar

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Apache Kafka	3.8%
Apache Pulsar	2.6%
Other	93.6%

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

Bruno da Silva

Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA

Have worked closely with the team to deploy streaming and transaction pipelines in a flexible cloud environment

The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better. I started working with Apache Kafka from its early days, and I have seen many improvements. The back office functionality could be enhanced. Scaling up continues to be a challenge, though it is much easier now than it was in the beginning.

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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.

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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

"For example, when you want to send a message to inform all your clients about a new feature, you can publish that message to a single topic in Apache Kafka. This allows all clients subscribed to that topic to receive the message. On the other hand, if you need to send billing information to a specific customer, you can publish that message on a topic dedicated to that customer. This message can then be sent as an SMS to the customer, allowing them to view it on their mobile device."

"Robust and delivers messages quickly."

"Kafka's most valuable feature is its user-friendliness."

"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."

"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."

"Its availability is brilliant."

"The most valuable features of the solution revolve around areas like the latency part, where the tool offers very little latency and the sequencing part."

"Kafka allows you to handle huge amounts of data and classify it into different categories. If you have huge amounts of data, Kafka is a very good solution for data classification."

More Apache Kafka pros

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

Cons

"In the data sharing space, the performance of Apache Kafka could be improved."

"The solution could always add a few more features to enhance its usage."

"The solution can improve by having automation for developers. We have done many manual calculations and it has been difficult but if it was automated it would be much better."

"Kafka 2.0 has been released for over a month, and I wanted to try out the new features. However, the configuration is a little bit complicated: Kafka Broker, Kafka Manager, ZooKeeper Servers, etc."

"Stability of the API and the technical support could be improved."

"Kafka's interface could also use some work. Some of our products are in C, and we don't have any libraries to use with C. From an interface perspective, we had a library from the readies. And we are streaming some of the products we built to readies. That is one of the requirements. It would be good to have those libraries available in a future release for our C++ clients or public libraries, so we can include them in our product and build on that."

"In the next release, I would like for there to be some authorization and HTL security."

"There have been some challenges with monitoring Apache Kafka, as there are currently only a few production-grade solutions available, which are all under enterprise license and therefore not easily accessible. The speaker has not had access to any of these solutions and has instead relied on tools, such as Dynatrace, which do not provide sufficient insight into the Apache Kafka system. While there are other tools available, they do not offer the same level of real-time data as enterprise solutions."

More Apache Kafka cons

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and is free to use."

"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."

"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."

"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."

"The cost can vary depending on the provider and the specific flavor or version you use. I'm not very knowledgeable about the pricing details."

"When starting to look at a distributed message system, look for a cloud solution first. It is an easier entry point than an on-premises hardware solution."

"It's a bit cheaper compared to other Q applications."

"Apache Kafka is open-source and can be used free of charge."

More Apache Kafka pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	49

No data available

Questions from the Community

What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?

Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...

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What do you like most about Apache Kafka?

Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?

Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Kafka

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Streaming Analytics

January 2026

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Overview

Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed streaming platform that serves as a central hub for handling real-time data streams. It allows efficient publishing, subscribing, and processing of data from various sources like applications, servers, and sensors.

Kafka's core benefits include high scalability for big data pipelines, fault tolerance ensuring continuous operation despite node failures, low latency for real-time applications, and decoupling of data producers from consumers.

Key features include topics for organizing data streams, producers for publishing data, consumers for subscribing to data, brokers for managing clusters, and connectors for easy integration with various data sources.

Large organizations use Kafka for real-time analytics, log aggregation, fraud detection, IoT data processing, and facilitating communication between microservices.

Apache

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

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest

Information Not Available

Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: January 2026.

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