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Apache Kafka vs EMQX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Apache Kafka offers ROI through scalability, cost reduction, time savings, customization, and valuable insights, despite some challenges.
Sentiment score
4.8
EMQX offers significant cost savings and scalability, with time savings evident, despite needing extra manpower for setup.
I have seen a return on investment with money saved and time saved because the protocol is MQTT.
Industrial Digitalization Engineer
I have seen a return on investment by lowering the resource cost by half.
Java Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Apache Kafka primarily depends on an active open-source community for support, complemented by in-house expertise and optional paid services.
Sentiment score
5.1
EMQX users primarily rely on excellent documentation and online resources, rarely needing customer support due to smooth operations.
The Apache community provides support for the open-source version.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
There is plenty of community support available online.
With Microsoft, expectations are higher because we pay for a license and have a contract.
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
The documentation is exceptional and so developer-friendly that customer support is not needed.
Senior Software Engineer
We get prompt responses from them.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
I have not used customer support for EMQX because I can understand it on my own by watching tutorials on YouTube, even if they are not from the official EMQX customer service, so I am satisfied with self-learning.
Research Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Apache Kafka offers scalable solutions with Kubernetes, efficiently handling large data and users across industries, especially finance.
Sentiment score
8.0
EMQX scales efficiently from thousands to millions of devices, praised for ease and features enhancing large-scale data management.
Customers have not faced issues with user growth or data streaming needs.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka is highly scalable and supports horizontal scaling by allowing you to add more brokers to the cluster and increase the number of partitions for a topic.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
I need to enable my solution with high availability and scalability.
Data Architect at Ascendion
EMQX has handled growth from thousands of devices to millions of devices.
Senior Software Engineer
EMQX's scalability is perfect.
Research Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
When performance is high, we only need to add a node replica.
Java Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Apache Kafka is stable and reliable, efficiently handling high data volumes with minimal issues and high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.6
Users trust EMQX for its reliable, stable performance and consistent uptime in diverse production environments across organizations.
Apache Kafka is stable.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
This feature of Apache Kafka has helped enhance our system stability when handling high volume data.
DevOps Engineer
Apache Kafka is more stable and is very good technology for asynchronous programming.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
It is a production-grade tool that has been tested and is used in production by many organizations.
Senior Software Engineer
 

Room For Improvement

Kafka needs improvements in duplicate management, UI, troubleshooting, cloud integration, messaging control, ZooKeeper dependency, and management tools.
EMQX users seek improved cost, reliability, and features like SSL/TLS management, monitoring, and AI integration for enhanced support.
Operating an Apache Kafka cluster requires expertise in partitioning, application monitoring, and capacity planning.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka groups could introduce themes or profiles of configuration to help manage this complexity without needing expertise.
Senior Principal Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
A centralized dashboard where we can add multiple clusters in a single place would be easier to monitor.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
I think EMQX needs to improve its logs. When I encounter a problem with EMQX error messages, it is very difficult to trace the logs and find the real reason for the error to fix it.
Java Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
If there were an option to utilize serverless without that TLS and SSL overhead, the embedded system would not experience the overhead burden.
Saa S Company
 

Setup Cost

Apache Kafka is open-source and affordable, but managed services and support can incur additional costs.
Enterprise buyers value EMQX for its cost-effectiveness, leveraging open-source advantages and minimizing expenses through cloud providers like AWS.
From a price perspective, if you are asking about Apache Kafka, I would rate it a nine.
Senior Principal Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
The open-source version of Apache Kafka results in minimal costs, mainly linked to accessing documentation and limited support.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka itself is open source and free to use.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
We do not need to pay for what we are not using.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
AWS costing for the product that is maintained is quite high.
Senior Software Engineer
EMQX is open-source and MQTT is also an open-source protocol, so the cost is less.
Industrial Digitalization Engineer
 

Valuable Features

Apache Kafka provides scalable, fault-tolerant, real-time data streaming for reliable message processing and integration across platforms with open-source flexibility.
EMQX offers efficient, scalable communication with low resource use, supporting real-time interactions and easy IoT integration for organizations.
Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing.
Apache Kafka is particularly valuable for managing high levels of transactions.
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
The best features include high throughput with low latency and support for horizontal scaling.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
The pub/sub functionality and how publishers and subscribers interact with each other without disrupting the connection between devices and applications is outstanding.
Senior Software Engineer
After using EMQX, we can now handle a large amount of data within a fraction of seconds, which makes it very easy for us to pass the data and store it in our database, and we can easily visualize it in our UI.
Software Engineer at Bahwan CyberTek
EMQX allowed us to scale our product very easily, enabling us to add multiple nodes as needed and perform regional deployments such as a standby EMQX cluster.
Staff Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (3rd)
EMQX
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (5th), IoT Connectivity (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and EMQX aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 3.8%, up 3.5% compared to last year.
EMQX, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 2.8% mindshare, up 1.5% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka3.8%
Databricks7.5%
Apache Flink7.5%
Other81.2%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
EMQX2.8%
IBM MQ21.0%
ActiveMQ20.1%
Other56.099999999999994%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Amandeep Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
Event-driven architecture has improved asynchronous communication and supports high throughput
We can improve the high throughput because there are some limitations. We could add something to improve Apache Kafka. Based on my daily usage and analysis, there is a complex setup and management, which is one area requiring improvement. Apache Kafka does not have built-in message delay or scheduling capabilities. Apache Kafka cannot natively schedule messages. Limited message prioritization is also an area requiring improvement. Ordering is limited to a single partition. Large messages affect performance. Apache Kafka is optimized for many small to medium-sized messages, but large payloads increase network usage, increase disk usage, and slow down producers and consumers. I rate Apache Kafka eight out of ten instead of ten out of ten because operating an Apache Kafka cluster requires expertise in partitioning, application monitoring, and capacity planning. Self-managed deployment can become complex as the cluster grows. Pro-managed Apache Kafka services significantly reduce the operational overhead.
AP
Senior Software Engineer
Connected millions of iot devices and manage real time pub sub control and flexible access rules
When going with the open-source EMQX version, there are limitations provided. For example, the webhooks use case cannot be scaled to as large a scale compared to the enterprise edition of EMQX. The open-source version helps a great deal with work in the company. The way this resource helps nurture the IoT device paradigm is greatly helpful for developers working newly on this system because the onboarding part of EMQX is very easy and developer-friendly. Someone who wants to dive into it can easily implement and make the system robust based on the technologies it provides. EMQX provides API connections for applications. HTTP calls can be made to EMQX to get updates from the client. Those connections should be made asynchronously. The webhook part handles this well, but when it comes to the API part, when the load and payload of the MQTT topics and messages are very heavy, sometimes unknown errors occur, and logs and errors must be found. When a specific log session is created for that client, the readability of those logs is not good. The platform itself does not need improvement, but when it comes to developer-friendly implementations of EMQX, there are some pain points that need attention. The visibility of logs, error logs, and information logs inside the built-in monitoring needs work because developers, when they implement code or any kind of specific tools, need proper control over the system. Without that control, there is no point in implementing anything at all. The monitoring part needs work. When it comes to the flow chart of how different clients are connected with different devices, there is a feature inside EMQX called Flow. When that Flow is in place, clients (devices) should be controllable from that Flow itself. These are the most important improvements that need to be addressed.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Media Company
19%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Legal Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for EMQX?
My experience with EMQX regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that it is affordable.
What needs improvement with EMQX?
I think EMQX can be improved, but to be honest, I don't have anything I'd like to see added or changed. In terms of needed improvements, I don't have anything else to add, even small ones or nice-t...
What is your primary use case for EMQX?
My main use case for EMQX is a stable and scalable IoT message queue. I use EMQX in one of my projects specifically with ESP32 and Argon and Boron embedded chips, and I program them to send and rec...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
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