AWS Database Migration Service vs Confluent comparison

AWS Database Migration Service

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS Database Migration Service and Confluent based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Data Integration solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Database Migration Service vs. Confluent Report (Updated: December 2025).

AWS Database Migration Service vs. Confluent

December 2025

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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

AWS Database Migration Service

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Integration (2nd)

Confluent

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Streaming Analytics (5th)

Featured Reviews

Avinash Gawali

Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC

Streamlines data migration across platforms with cost-effective and scalable solutions

We have the continuous data integration feature, but it does not work very well in our given ecosystem because we have huge data volume, and it reads from archive log rather than the redo sequence. That is where it lacks, so we are not able to do continuous streaming data injection. The ability to handle heterogeneous migrations for our organization is adequate. I do not see a major value add, or see it as a marquee feature. It is a good tool, but we do not have that sort of uses requirement. In my 10 plus years of experience, I do not see that kind of requirement where I have to replicate it in real time. I leverage AWS CloudWatch for addressing migration issues. The major challenges come across CDC. We have created latency filter and everything, but there is no way to control it. Due to the nature of our business, the transactions increase during month end and year end. My transactions are supposed to increase, my workloads on my core system increases, but my DMS is not able to keep up with them, even if I increase it to a higher side. Improvements could be made in AWS Database Migration Service. Because of that, I am moving out of DMS now to a STRIIM solution. DMS works within AWS ecosystem, but they also have to look for third party solutions. Now Snowflake is a bigger player, or Databricks. Something that could be possible as a connector, whether paid or free, but giving as a connector to that ecosystem as well.

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PavanManepalli

AVP - Sr Middleware Messaging Integration Engineer at Wells Fargo

Has supported streaming use cases across data centers and simplifies fraud analytics with SQL-based processing

I recommend that Confluent should improve its solution to keep up with competitors in the market, such as Solace and other upcoming tools such as NATS. Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about Confluent charging high fees while not offering features that match those of other tools. They need to improve in that direction by not only reducing costs but also providing better solutions for the problems customers face to avoid frustrations, whether through future enhancement requests or ensuring product stability. The cost should be worked on, and they should provide better solutions for customers. Solutions should focus on hierarchical topics; if a customer has different types of data and sources, they should be able to send them to the same place for analytics. Currently, Confluent requires everything to send to the same topic, which becomes very large and makes running analytics difficult. The hierarchy of topics should be improved. This part is available in MQ and other products such as Solace, but it is missing in Confluent, leading many in capital markets and trading to switch to Solace. In terms of stability, it is not the stability itself that needs improvement but rather the delivery semantics. Other products offer exactly-once delivery out of the box, whereas Confluent states it will offer this but lacks the knobs or levers for tuning configurations effectively. Confluent has hundreds of configurations that application teams must understand, which creates a gap. Users are often unaware of what values to set for better performance or to achieve exactly-once semantics, making it difficult to navigate through them. Delivery semantics also need to be worked on.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable and reliable."

"This efficient workflow has been particularly helpful."

"The database migration services allow us to do real-time synchronization of on-premise and database to plan out our releases."

"The process is now simplified because there won't be maintenance. Usually we can take a snapshot of the number I need. We can automate the backup snapshots and we can restore it very quickly. We get many benefits from the application."

"DMS's architecture is highly beneficial, allowing for scalable migrations of large datasets."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Database Migration Service is it catches all the history changes, such as inset, observe, and delete. It tracks everything."

"It's pretty useful when we need to migrate something big from a different type of database that AWS Data Migration Services supports."

"The tools are very user-friendly."

More AWS Database Migration Service pros

"The documentation process is fast with the tool."

"Their tech support is amazing; they are very good, both on and off-site."

"A person with a good IT background and HTML will not have any trouble with Confluent."

"I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and tools."

"The most valuable feature that we are using is the data replication between the data centers allowing us to configure a disaster recovery or software. However, is it's not mandatory to use and because most of the features that we use are from Apache Kafka, such as end-to-end encryption. Internally, we can develop our own kind of product or service from Apache Kafka."

"The design of the product is extremely well built and it is highly configurable."

"We ensure seamless management of Kafka through Confluent, allowing all of our Kafka activities to be handled by a third party."

"The benefit is escaping email communication. Sometimes people ignore emails or put them into spam, but with Confluence, everyone sees the same text at the same time."

More Confluent pros

Cons

"We would like to see some improvement in the performance of large scale procedures, such as when we migrate from Oracle to csSQL."

"One area that AWS DMS can improve on is its conversion of data types. For example, in Oracle, you have a data type called RAW, but in PostgreSQL there is no such thing. Thus, AWS DMS doesn't know what type I want to use when migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL, and when performing the migration, AWS DMS changed the RAW data type to the byte data type, which isn't what I wanted."

"In my experience, AWS Database Migration Service performs well for its primary purpose of data migration. One area that could be improved is its support for non-AWS file formats, particularly when integrating data from sources stored outside of AWS. For example, handling AWS Data Lakes, Delta Lake, or Hadoop file formats stored in S3 requires extensive configuration and isn't always straightforward. It would be beneficial to streamline this process to ensure smoother migrations from non-AWS environments to AWS. As for additional functionality, I think enhancing support for these external file formats and simplifying configuration steps would be valuable improvements for the service."

"Whatever solution worked today can not be reused in the next migration."

"The server has limits on how many can connect to the database."

"This solution can offer more tweaks where the latency can be brought down to fifteen seconds."

"If they had some sort of functionality where, at a specific point in time, if I want to start a new job, it should automatically pick up from where it has been left rather than having people worry about the exact job number and the timing."

"AWS Database Migration Service can become complex when testing. Other solutions, such as Microsoft Azure makes it easy to do. There are more steps to complete tasks in AWS Database Migration Service than in Microsoft Azure."

More AWS Database Migration Service cons

"I am not very impressed by Confluent. We continuously face issues, such as Kafka being down and slow responses from the support team."

"It requires some application specific connectors which are lacking. This needs to be added."

"Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about Confluent charging high fees while not offering features that match those of other tools."

"It would help if the knowledge based documents in the support portal could be available for public use as well."

"there is room for improvement in the visualization."

"The pricing model should include the ability to pick features and be charged for them only."

"Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about Confluent charging high fees while not offering features that match those of other tools."

"The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful."

More Confluent cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Database Migration Service is the least expensive solution, but is still expensive."

"Pricing can be improved."

"For Egypt, the product's prices are high, making it a specific problem in one region and not globally."

"The pricing can be better and it should be more competitive."

"In terms of pricing, I'd rate it an eight out of ten, considering it's a well-priced solution."

"Cost is the only factor that is challenging."

"AWS Database Migration Service is very inexpensive."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

More AWS Database Migration Service pricing and cost advice

"Confluent is expensive, I would prefer, Apache Kafka over Confluent because of the high cost of maintenance."

"You have to pay additional for one or two features."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate Confluent's pricing at five. I have not encountered any additional costs."

"It comes with a high cost."

"Regarding pricing, I think Confluent is a premium product, but it's hard for me to say definitively if it's overly expensive. We're still trying to understand if the features and reduced maintenance complexity justify the cost, especially as we scale our platform use."

"The pricing model of Confluent could improve because if you have a classic use case where you're going to use all the features there is no plan to reduce the features. You should be able to pick and choose basic services at a reduced price. The pricing was high for our needs. We should not have to pay for features we do not use."

"The solution is cheaper than other products."

"Confluence's pricing is quite reasonable, with a cost of around $10 per user that decreases as the number of users increases. Additionally, it's worth noting that for teams of up to 10 users, the solution is completely free."

More Confluent pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What resources can you use to learn how to utilize AWS Database Migration Service?

As with all AWS products, you are given very useful documentation with AWS Database Migration Service. Before we started using this product, we went over it and we were able to learn the basics an...

Would you recommend AWS Database Migration Service as a cloud data integration tool?

My current company started using AWS Database Migration Service upon my recommendation, and I continue telling people how good of a product it is. However, users should keep in mind a few things. ...

Is AWS Database Migration Service an affordable solution?

Compared to similar solutions, AWS Database Migration Service falls somewhere in the middle price-wise, at least from my experience. This being said, it is not a very affordable solution, especial...

What do you like most about Confluent?

I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and to...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Confluent?

They charge a lot for scaling, which makes it expensive.

What needs improvement with Confluent?

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Product Reports

AWS Database Migration Service

February 2026

Download AWS Database Migration Service product report

Download Confluent product report

February 2026

Also Known As

AWS Data Migration Service

No data available

Overview

AWS Database Migration Service, also known as AWS DMS, is a cloud service that facilitates the migration of relational databases, NoSQL databases, data warehouses, and other types of data stores. The product can be used to migrate users' data into the AWS Cloud or between combinations of on-premises and cloud setups. The solution allows migration between a wide variety of sources and target endpoints; the only requirement is that one of the endpoints has to be an AWS service. AWS DMS cannot be used to migrate from an on-premises database to another on-premises database.

AWS Database Migration Service allows users to perform one-time migrations, as well as replications of ongoing changes to keep sources and targets in sync. Organizations can utilize the AWS Schema Conversion Tool to translate their database schema to a new platform and then use AWS DMS to migrate the data. The product offers cost efficiency as a part of the AWS Cloud, as well as speed to market, flexibility, and security.

The main use cases of AWS Database Migration Service include:

Migrating from legacy or on-premises databases to managed cloud services through a simplified migration process.
Reliable replication of backup files to minimize downtime and data loss.
Improvement of integration through building of data lakes and performing real-time processing on change data from users' data stores.

AWS Database Migration Service Components

AWS Database Migration Service consists of various components which function together to achieve users’ data migration. A migration on AWS DMS is structured in three levels: a replication instance, source and target endpoints, and a replication task. The components include the following actions:

Replication instance: AWS Database Migration Service provides users with a variety of replication instances, allowing them to select the optimal configuration for their use case. Depending on the instance class an organization selects, their replication instance provides a different amount of data storage.
Endpoint: AWS DMS uses an endpoint to access users' source or target data stores. The connection information is different and depends on the specific data store, but it usually consists of the following information: endpoint type, engine type, server name, port, encryption, and credentials. This information can easily be managed through the AWS DMS console.
Replication tasks: AWS Database Migration Service replication tasks can be used to move a set of data from the source endpoint to the target endpoint. The creation of a replication task is the last required step before starting a migration. Each replication task requires the following settings to be set: replication instance, source endpoint, target endpoint, and migration type options.
Ongoing replication or change data capture (CDC): AWS DMS also has the capacity to capture ongoing changes to the source that is stored while users migrate their data to a target.
Schema and code migration: The product requires assistance from tools such as MySQL Workbench, pgAdmin III, and Oracle SQL Developer to perform schema or code conversion, as it cannot do it on its own.

AWS Database Migration Service Benefits

AWS Database Migration Service offers its users a wide range of benefits. Among them are the following:

The solution ensures minimal downtime, as it continuously replicates the changes to the user’s source database during migration.
AWS DMS provides users with flexibility, as it supports many commonly used databases, including commercial and open-source ones.
The product is user friendly, as it offers an easy set of tasks in the AWS Management Console.
Users of Aurora, Redshift, DocumentDB, and DynamoDB can benefit from the free use of AWS DMS.
AWS Database Migration Service is very reliable because it is a self-healing service that automatically restarts in cases of interruptions.
The product supports both homogenous migrations and heterogenous migrations.
AWS DMS accelerates business growth, as it scales businesses at an affordable price.

Reviews from Real Users

Vishal S., an infrastructure lead at a computer software company, likes AWS Database Migration Service because it is easy to use and set up.

Vinod K., a data analyst at AIMLEAP, describes AWS DMS as an easy solution to save and extract data.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Confluent is an enterprise-ready, full-scale streaming platform that enhances Apache Kafka.

Confluent has integrated cutting-edge features that are designed to enhance these tasks:

Speed up application development and connectivity
Enable transformations through stream processing
Streamline business operations at scale
Adhere to strict architectural standards

Confluent is a more complete distribution of Kafka in that it enhances the integration possibilities of Kafka by introducing tools for managing and optimizing Kafka clusters while providing methods for making sure the streams are secure. Confluent supports publish-and-subscribe as well as the storing and processing of data within the streams. Kafka is easier to operate and build thanks to Confluent.

Confluent's software is available in three different varieties:

A free, open-source streaming platform that makes it simple to start using real-time data streams
An enterprise-grade version of the product with more administrative, ops, and monitoring tools
A premium cloud-based version.

Confluent Advantage Features

Confluent has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Multi-language
- Clients: C++, Python, Go, and .NET
- REST proxy: Can connect to Kafka from any connected network device
- Admin REST APIs: RESTful interface for performing administrator operations

Pre-built ecosystem
- Connectors: More than 100 supported connectors, including S3, Elastic, HDFS, JDBC
- MQTT proxy: Gain access to Kafka from MQTT gateways and devices
- Schema registry: Centralized database to guarantee data compatibility

Streaming database
- ksqlDB: Materialized views and real-time stream processing

GUI management
- Control panel: GUI for scalable Kafka management and monitoring
- Health+: Smart alerts and cloud-based control centers

DevOps automation that is flexible
- Confluent for Kubernetes: Complete API to deploy on Kubernetes
- Automated Ansible deployment on non-containerized environments

Dynamic performance
- Self-balancing clusters: Automated partition re-balancing across brokers in the cluster
- Tiered storage: Older Kafka data offloading to object storage with transparent access

Security that is enterprise-grade
- Role-based access control: Granular user/group access authorization
- Audit logs that are structured: Logs of user actions kept in dedicated Kafka topics
- Secret protection: Sensitive information is encrypted

Global resilience
- Linking clusters: A real-time, highly reliable, and consistent bridge across on-premises and cloud environments
- Multiple-region clusters: Single Kafka cluster with automated client failover distributed across multiple data centers
- Replicator: Asynchronous replication that is based on the Kafka Connect framework

Support
- Round the clock enterprise support from Kafka experts

Reviews from Real Users

Confluent stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust enterprise support and its open source option. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Ravi B., a solutions architect at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “KSQL is a valuable feature, as is the Kafka Connect framework for connecting to the various source systems where you need not write the code. We get great support from Confluent because we're using the enterprise version and whenever there's a problem, they support us with fine-tuning and finding the root cause.”

Amit S., an IT consultant, notes, “The biggest benefit is that it is open source. You have the flexibility of opting or not opting for enterprise support, even though the tool itself is open source.” He adds, “The second benefit is it's very modern and built on Java and Scala. You can extend the features very well, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.”

Sample Customers

Veoci, Trimble, Nasdaq, shaadi.com, Hotelbeds, SysAid, Verizon, Expedia, Pega

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost