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Confluent vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform 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

Confluent
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (3rd)
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (4th), Business-to-Business Middleware (1st), Workload Automation (4th), Cloud Data Integration (4th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Gustavo-Barbosa Dos Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good technical support services and a valuable feature for real-time data streaming
Implementing Confluent's schema registry has significantly enhanced our organization's data quality assurance. It helps us understand the various requirements of multiple customers and validates the information for different versions. We can automate the tasks using Confluent Kafka. Thus, it guarantees us the data quality and maintains the integrity of message contracts.
Mohan BS - PeerSpot reviewer
A useful tool to integrate applications and for data transformations that need to improve in the area of price and support
The main area where improvements are required in the product revolves around budgeting. The cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required, especially when compared to other tools, like Dell Boomi or Oracle. Mule Anypoint Platform is made available with many components, and whether users use them or not depends on their choices. For example, though there is a tool called Anypoint MQ, our organization prefers to pay and use Kafka, as we don't want to use MuleSoft Anypoint MQ. In Mule Anypoint Platform, there needs to be proper segregation to help users identify what they need and don't need, making it an area where users need to be careful when opting for MuleSoft. Mule Anypoint Platform is an integration tool and not an ETL solution. When a user has to deal with a huge number of data, then Mule Anypoint Platform should not be a preferred choice since it can only be used for lightweight purposes revolving around APIs. There is a need to have a clear architectural decision made before opting for Mule Anypoint Platform. When there is a requirement for heavy data transformation, then users need to decide whether to go with Mule Anypoint Platform or any other platform available in the market. Though the tool comes with many useful components, it depends on whether the user plans to use all of its features. Recently, the product has come up with a new feature that is similar to an API catalog. MuleSoft had come up with the UAPIM feature almost eight months to a year ago, which had some concerns in the area of budgeting. Whether you build APIs using Javacore or any other tools, they can be cataloged using MuleSoft's UAPIM feature, for which users need to pay an extra amount, making it an area of concern for users. It would be great if MuleSoft's support team could provide help with the area of Kubernetes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable feature of Confluent is the wide range of features provided. They're leading the market in this category."
"It is also good for knowledge base management."
"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."
"Confluent facilitates the messaging tasks with Kafka, streamlining our processes effectively."
"Confluence's greatest asset is its user-friendly interface, coupled with its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with a vast range of other solutions."
"The design of the product is extremely well built and it is highly configurable."
"With Confluent Cloud we no longer need to handle the infrastructure and the plumbing, which is a concern for Confluent. The other advantage is that all portfolios have access to the data that is being shared."
"We use simple queues and exchanges to route messages to multiple queues. The publish/subscribe model is also helpful."
"MuleSoft offers with the Anypoint Platform a unified platform for API management and an integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) as well as an on-premise Enterprise Service Bus pattern."
"The monitoring capabilities of this product are very good because of the feedback it supplies in statistics."
"It is very easy to use for building connectors. It comes with a lot of connectors. For example, it has different adapters for NetSuite, which are very easy to use. It also has Salesforce connectors. The object store feature is also really easy to use. Mule Anypoint Platform is also good in terms of performance and how it is managed behind the scenes."
"The solution is scalable, and its performance is quite good."
"The most valuable features of the Mule Anypoint Platform are the Flex Gateway, API management, easy-to-use, and connectors. Additionally, they are coming out with improvements to the solution when required."
"It can scale."
"Initial setup was very straightforward. Deployment is a cakewalk."
 

Cons

"It could be more user-friendly and centralized. A way to reduce redundancy would be helpful."
"There is a limitation when it comes to seamlessly importing Microsoft documents into Confluent pages, which can be inconvenient for users who frequently work with Microsoft Office tools and need to transition their content to Confluent."
"The product should integrate tools for incorporating diagrams like Lucidchart. It also needs to improve its formatting features. We also faced issues while granting permissions."
"The Schema Registry service could be improved. I would like a bigger knowledge base of other use cases and more technical forums. It would be good to have more flexible monitoring features added to the next release as well."
"The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful."
"Confluent has a good monitoring tool, but it's not customizable."
"Confluent's price needs improvement."
"It requires some application specific connectors which are lacking. This needs to be added."
"The solution's licensing methodologies could be improved."
"An on-premise setup requires special skills and you need a lot of professional services."
"The platform's data integration tools need improvement on the processing side."
"From a monitoring point of view, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform can improve on tracking transactions. When dealing with multiple transactions or trading, the system can lose control, and tracking becomes hectic."
"Anypoint MQ's capabilities are mainly used for messaging purposes, but it doesn't have typical use cases that extend as far as other Message Queue software."
"There are so many solutions like this, but this is not as mature as those products. The other MQ products have the capability of reprocessing and maintaining the persistence of the data. They can handle large volumes and large messages, but Anypoint MQ doesn't have those capabilities."
"Technical support needs to be improved, especially when you need help with more technical aspects of the solution."
"Mule Anypoint Platform should improve its pricing. In my experience, a customer using the sandbox version couldn't upgrade to the final version because it exceeded their budget. Another area for improvement is the login mechanism. We need to integrate with third-party products for strong authentication, but it would be better if MuleSoft had its own robust login mechanism."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with a high cost."
"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."
"You have to pay additional for one or two features."
"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."
"Confluent has a yearly license, which is a bit high because it's on a per-user basis."
"Confluent is highly priced."
"Confluent is expensive, I would prefer, Apache Kafka over Confluent because of the high cost of maintenance."
"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."
"Mule Anypoint Platform is an expensive solution."
"Making changes in Anypoint MQ is expensive."
"The solution has a high price."
"Mule Anypoint Platform pricing is slightly higher compared to Dell Boomi."
"Regarding pricing, I believe there could be room for improvement to align with user expectations."
"The tool's pricing is cheaper than other RPAs' since it is execution-based. Other RPAs charge based on subscriptions."
"The tool is heavily bundle-priced. I rate the solution’s pricing five on a scale of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The solution's pricing, as per the old approach, is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I am not very impressed by Confluent. We continuously face issues, such as Kafka being down and slow responses from the support team. The lack of easy access to the Confluent support team is also a...
What advice do you have for others considering Mule Anypoint Platform?
I architected solutions using Oracle SOA/OSB, Spring Boot, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes; What I see is though if you are an enterprise and have enough money th...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What can Mule Anypoint Platform be used for and what do you use it for most often?
This is a very flexible solution that comes with multiple uses. My organization mostly uses Mule Anypoint Platform for API management, as it lets us build new APIs easily and design new interfaces...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Data Integrator, Anypoint MQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost
VMware, Gucci, MasterCard, Target, Time Inc, Hershey's, Tesla, Spotify, Office Depot, Intuit, CBS, Amtrak, Salesforce, Gap, Ralph Lauren
Find out what your peers are saying about Confluent vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.