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Apache Kafka vs Cloudera DataFlow 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 Kafka
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cloudera DataFlow
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
19th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.9%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudera DataFlow is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka3.9%
Cloudera DataFlow2.0%
Other94.1%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Varuns Ug - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at NIT
Event-driven workflows have improved payment processing and reduced latency across services
One area for improvement in Apache Kafka is operational complexity. Running and maintaining an Apache Kafka cluster at scale involves handling partitions, replications, retention policies, rebalancing, and monitoring, which requires strong expertise. Debugging and observability can be complex in large systems, as troubleshooting issues such as consumer lag, offset management problems, or uneven partition distribution can become challenging. The learning curve is relatively steep, requiring a good understanding of concepts such as partition, consumer group, offset commit, and delivery guarantees to avoid subtle production issues. One area where Apache Kafka could improve is the developer experience around debugging and tracing events end to end. In distributed systems, when an event passes through multiple topics and consumer services, troubleshooting can become time-consuming. Better built-in observability for tracing event flows across services would be very useful.
Mohamed-Saied - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Architect at Teradata Corporation
Efficient data integration and workflow scheduling elevate project performance
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily for operational tasks, and it integrates well within Cloudera's ecosystem for high performance and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kafka provides us with a way to store the data used for analytics. That's the big selling point. There's very good log management."
"The message bus capabilities, basically sending messages to it, and the way it handles events or messages is pretty good."
"Kafka can process messages in real-time, making it useful for applications that require near-instantaneous processing."
"Performance-wise, Kafka is better than any of the other products."
"The most valuable feature is the messaging function and reliability."
"It is easy to configure."
"It has become dead simple to connect different application and services, saving a lot of development hours."
"Apache Kafka has helped our client's online restaurant company by allowing them to take any orders and send the notifications with some other details, such as logic commands, to the different microservices."
"This solution is very scalable and robust."
"The initial setup was not so difficult"
"Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems."
"DataFlow's performance is okay."
"The most effective features are data management and analytics."
 

Cons

"When we have thousands of topics, it is hard to visualize."
"Kafka can allow for duplicates, which isn't as helpful in some of our scenarios."
"Kafka's interface could also use some work."
"The only reason I give Kafka as product a low rating is because there are far superior and cheaper alternatives in cloud-based solutions, where we save money on manpower, electricity, servers, datacenters, networking, etc."
"One improvement is in regards to the OS memory management."
"Apache Kafka could improve data loss and compatibility with Spark."
"Stability of the API and the technical support could be improved."
"Apache Kafka can improve by providing a UI for monitoring. There are third-party tools that can do it, but it would be nice if it was already embedded within Apache Kafka."
"Although their workflow is pretty neat, it still requires a lot of transformation coding; especially when it comes to Python and other demanding programming languages."
"It's an outdated legacy product that doesn't meet the needs of modern data analysts and scientists."
"Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today."
"It is not easy to use the R language. Though I don't know if it's possible, I believe it is possible, but it is not the best language for machine learning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"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."
"It is open source software."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"DataFlow isn't expensive, but its value for money isn't great."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
From the AWS perspective, the price is on the higher side. However, if you go for Apache Kafka, it is low. From a price perspective, if you are asking about Apache Kafka, I would rate it a nine.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is abundant with features which only an expert-level person will be able to manage due to the high volume and high concurrent expectations. Apache Kafka groups could introduce themes o...
What needs improvement with Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today.
What is your primary use case for Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems. However, the learning curve is high, and there is a shor...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CDF, Hortonworks DataFlow, HDF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Clearsense
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Cloudera DataFlow and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.