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Apache Kafka vs TIBCO Streaming comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 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
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
TIBCO Streaming
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Complex Event Processing (CEP) (1st)
 

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 TIBCO Streaming is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
TIBCO Streaming1.2%
Other94.8%
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.
MK
Head of Data and Analytics Solutions at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Good stability and scalability with the capability to combine with Spotfire
The ability for StreamBase to combine with Spotfire is its most valuable aspect. The ability to handle data in motion and the entirety of data at the same time is very good. If you don't integrate the two together it's just a monitoring tool, but if they're combined together it becomes a powerful analytical tool. When you can combine live data from streaming data sources with standing data from the customer's primary database then you can calculate some KPIs or thresholds based on the previous information. We can do data science, machine learning methods or just clever queries. You can view all this online. If a KPI hits a redline, you can send alerts, which is the solution's most functional feature.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is very nice. We currently manage 50 million events daily."
"Its availability is brilliant."
"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."
"Kafka makes data streaming asynchronous and decouples the reliance of events on consumers."
"It seemed pretty stable and didn't have any issues at all."
"Kafka is scalable to any degree we want, and it has several connectors available for integration in multiple languages, making it easier for integration."
"I have seen a return on investment with this solution."
"Kafka, as compared with other messaging system options, is great for large scale message processing applications. It offers high throughput with built-in fault-tolerance and replication."
"The ability for StreamBase to combine with Spotfire is its most valuable aspect. The ability to handle data in motion and the entirety of data at the same time is very good. If you don't integrate the two together it's just a monitoring tool, but if they're combined together it becomes a powerful analytical tool."
 

Cons

"Apache Kafka can improve by making the documentation more user-friendly. It would be beneficial if we could explain to customers in more detail how the solution operates but the documentation get highly technical quickly. For example, if they had a simple page where we can show the customers how it works without the need for the customer to have a computer science background."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"More Windows support, I believe, is one area where it can improve."
"Too much dependency on the zookeeper and leader selection is still the bottleneck for Kafka implementation."
"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 management overhead is more compared to the messaging system. There are challenges here and there. Like for long usage, it requires restarts and nodes from time to time."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. It would be better to have a lower price."
"The user interface is one weakness. Sometimes, our data isn't as accessible as we'd like. It takes a lot of work to retrieve the data and the index."
"The solution should be more user-friendly for developers. Right now, you need a strong programmer to tune the solution. It's complicated product. I'm not sure if it can be done via self-service with BI. Because I'm from BI, I want more simplicity."
 

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."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"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."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"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."
"I was using the product's free version."
"Apache Kafka is open-source and can be used free of charge."
"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
Information not available
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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.
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Also Known As

No data available
TIBCO Streambase CEP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Blendtec, Brembo, CargoSmart, Hunt Oil, Autodata, Bank of Montreal
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.