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Apache Kafka vs Redpanda 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
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Redpanda
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
17th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 4.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redpanda is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
Redpanda1.7%
Other94.3%
Streaming Analytics
 

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.
ArpitShah - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Analyst at CLSA
Affordable, easy to deploy, and it is easy to find things on the user interface
We use the libraries in the different programming languages. We use the message format in Avro, convert the data in the format, and pass it on. We have contacted the sales team about the solution. So far, the product fulfills our requirements. We get lots of data. The data flows through Kafka to Redpanda. Then it goes to a database. If our infrastructure goes down for a week, we will not lose data. It is an advantage of Redpanda. I recommend the product to others. We might choose a different solution if we find something cheaper. We used Redpanda because we did not want to self-host our software. Redpanda is a piece of infrastructure. There is not much of a learning curve. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apache Kafka is actually a distributed commit log. That is different than most messaging and queuing systems before it."
"There are numerous possibilities that can be explored. While it may be challenging to fully comprehend the potential advantages, one key aspect is the ability to establish a proper sequence of events rather than simply dealing with a jumbled group of occurrences. These events possess their own timestamps, even if they were not initially provided with one, and are arranged in a chronological order that allows for a clear understanding of the progression of the events."
"The most valuable feature is the documentation, which is good and clear."
"It's very easy to keep to install and it's pretty stable."
"Apache Kafka is very fast and stable."
"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."
"Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing."
"Resiliency is great and also the fact that it handles different data formats."
"What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications."
"The UI is modern."
"I tested it with ten-plus nodes, and it's highly scalable."
"The cost savings have been significant."
 

Cons

"I would like them to reduce the learning curve around the creation of brokers and topics. They also need to improve on the concept of the partitions."
"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."
"The solution could always add a few more features to enhance its usage."
"Kafka has a lot of monitors, but sometimes it's most important to just have a simple monitor."
"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."
"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 manageability should be improved. There are lots of things we need to manage and it should have a function that enables us to manage them all cohesively."
"I would like to see monitoring service tools."
"The version control mechanism must be improved."
"Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good."
"When it comes to self-hosting, their documentation could be improved."
"The command-line tools need to be improved. To quickly check the status of the topics and all."
 

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."
"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."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"I was using the product's free version."
"This is an open-source solution and is free to use."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"It's free. Everybody can use it, only support is paid."
"Redpanda is cheaper than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redpanda?
Redpanda is actually a commercial platform, but they do provide free versions as well. I've been working only with the free versions.
What needs improvement with Redpanda?
Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good. Maybe ...
What is your primary use case for Redpanda?
I have worked with Redpanda for the past two to three months. Mainly in the tech industry or software industry, there's a huge rise of streaming data. Redpanda serves as a very reliable and fast me...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Redpanda and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.