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Apache Kafka vs Informatica Data Engineering Streaming [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 11, 2025

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)
Informatica Data Engineerin...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
DK
BI Practice Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Helps with real-time data processing and improves decision-making overall
It improves decision-making overall for the company. Informatica is usually the tool for setting up the data, streaming the data into your data warehouse from your source, transforming the data, and preparing and modeling it into some desired format. It improves the performance. You need to know how to use it and how to implement it, but it improves performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the features of Apache Kafka are valuable, I cannot single out one feature."
"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."
"I like the performance and reliability of Kafka. I needed a data streaming buffer that could handle thousands of messages per second with at least one processing point for an analytics pipeline. Kafka fits this requirement very well."
"Apache Kafka is scalable. It is easy to add brokers."
"Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing."
"Apache Kafka has good integration capabilities and has plenty of adapters in its ecosystem if you want to build something. There are adapters for many platforms, such as Java, Azure, and Microsoft's ecosystem. Other solutions, such as Pulsar have fewer adapters available."
"The stability is very nice. We currently manage 50 million events daily."
"The use of Kafka's logging mechanism has been extremely beneficial for us, as it allows us to sequence messages, track pointers, and manage memory without having to create multiple copies."
"It improves the performance."
 

Cons

"For personal preferences, since we use Managed Kafka in AWS, I would appreciate having some kind of UI integrated into Apache Kafka for connecting to it because using code to connect it is basic, but we can use a UI."
"Kafka does not provide control over the message queue, so we do not know whether we are experiencing lost or duplicate messages."
"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."
"Kafka is a nightmare to administer."
"The initial setup and deployment could be less complex."
"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."
"The graphical user environment is currently lacking."
"The solution's initial setup process was complex."
"Skill requirement is required. There is a learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"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."
"I was using the product's free version."
"Kafka is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"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."
"We use the free version."
"It's a bit cheaper compared to other Q applications."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Media Company
6%
 

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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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 Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
Skill requirement is required. There is a learning curve.
What is your primary use case for Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
We implement business intelligence solutions, including data warehousing tools, data integration to load data into warehouses, and then creating reports.
What advice do you have for others considering Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. Usually, Informatica is for big clients because of its pricing, and it also requires some skill sets. It requires investment into a proper da...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Big Data Streaming, Informatica Intelligent Streaming, Intelligent Streaming
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Jewelry TV
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