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Apache Kafka vs IBM Event Streams 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Kafka
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (7th)
IBM Event Streams
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and IBM Event Streams aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, up 2.4% compared to last year.
IBM Event Streams, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 2.2% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.2%
Apache Flink10.9%
Databricks9.0%
Other75.9%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Event Streams2.2%
IBM MQ22.7%
ActiveMQ22.0%
Other53.1%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Bruno da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at areebah
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use it for real-time processing workloads. So, in some instances, it's like IoT data. We need to put it into a data lake."
"It is a stable solution...A lot of my experience indicates that Apache Kafka is scalable."
"Overall, I rate Apache Kafka as nine out of ten for its scalability and stability."
"I appreciate that Apache Kafka is fast and secure thanks to implementing it with AWS, allowing me to secure it on a high level."
"The valuable features are the group community and support."
"The most important feature for me is the guaranteed delivery of messages from producers to consumers."
"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."
"When comparing it with other messaging and integration platforms, this is one of the best rated."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"The stability has been good."
 

Cons

"The repository isn't working very well. It's not user friendly."
"Too much dependency on the zookeeper and leader selection is still the bottleneck for Kafka implementation."
"It’s a trial-and-error process with no one-size-fits-all solution. Issues may arise until it’s appropriately tuned."
"Apache Kafka has performance issues that cause it to lag."
"The solution can improve its cloud support."
"As an open-source project, Kafka is still fairly young and has not yet built out the stability and features that other open-source projects have acquired over the many years. If done correctly, Kafka can also take over the stream-processing space that technologies such as Apache Storm cover."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"Something that could be improved is having an interface to monitor the consuming rate."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Kafka is an open-sourced solution. There are fees if you want the support, and I would recommend it for enterprises. There are annual subscriptions available."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. For on-premise, there is an annual fee, which starts at 60,000 euros, but it is usually higher than 100,000 euros. The cost for a project including the subscription is usually between 100,000 to 200,000 euros. The cost also depends on the level of support. There are two different levels of support."
"I rate Apache Kafka's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing fees for Apache Kafka."
"It is open source software."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"The platform is averagely priced."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise49
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?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
The long-term data storage feature in Apache Kafka depends on the setting, but I believe the maximum duration is seven days.
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Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. IBM Event Streams and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.