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Amazon Kinesis vs Apache Flink comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Amazon Kinesis
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Flink
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon Kinesis is 4.0%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Flink is 7.5%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Flink7.5%
Amazon Kinesis4.0%
Other88.5%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1480695 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Software Development at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has enabled real-time processing of critical event streams with seamless cloud integration
We are contemplating moving away from Amazon Kinesis primarily because of the cost. It is very useful, but if we write our own analytics and data processing pipeline, it would be much cheaper for us. The cost is a primary hindrance. That's why we are not using it widely. For our critical pipeline we are using it, but after that we are putting it in an S3 bucket. Other pipelines directly put the events in an S3 bucket and then process from there. There is no lack of functions in Amazon Kinesis. Functionality-wise, we feel it's complete. The cost aspect is what we are really concerned about.
Sanjay Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Architect at IBM
Streaming workflows have improved data integration and support real-time pipelines across platforms
We are not using Apache Flink in its advanced window capabilities. We are using the Apache Flink job in Apache SeaTunnel, meaning we can write the code inside Apache SeaTunnel. Currently, we are moving; both solutions are there. We are doing it on-premises with the help of Kubernetes and OpenShift. The main reason why Apache Flink is better is that it has more functions, and being open source with easy code in Apache SeaTunnel helps us achieve that. Cost is a major issue. I would rate the stability of the product as an eight. For Apache Flink, the final point can be rated an eight. I can recommend Apache Flink to other users for streaming support, and I am recommending it. I would rate this review an eight overall.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The management and analytics are valuable features."
"Amazon Kinesis has improved our ROI."
"Great auto-scaling, auto-sharing, and auto-correction features."
"I find almost all features valuable, especially the timing and fast pace movement."
"The major advantage with Amazon Kinesis is the availability, additionally the reliability is awesome, the replay is incredibly fast, and the ingesting, buffering, and processing of data are really fast."
"There is no problem with the tool's stability."
"I like the ease of use and how we can quickly get the configurations done, making it pretty straightforward and stable."
"We have been able to drop our costs for ingesting data by about 60 to 70%."
"The top feature of Apache Flink is its low latency for fast, real-time data. Another great feature is the real-time indicators and alerts which make a big difference when it comes to data processing and analysis."
"The setup was not too difficult."
"This is truly a real-time solution."
"The ease of usage, even for complex tasks, stands out."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"It provides us the flexibility to deploy it on any cluster without being constrained by cloud-based limitations."
"Apache Flink's best feature is its data streaming tool."
"With Flink, it provides out-of-the-box checkpointing and state management. It helps us in that way. When Storm used to restart, sometimes we would lose messages. With Flink, it provides guaranteed message processing, which helped us. It also helped us with maintenance or restarts."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement in the solution is the file size limitation of 10 Mb. My company works with files with a larger file size. The batch size and throughput also need improvement in Amazon Kinesis."
"Amazon Kinesis has a less meaningful and easy use than Azure Event Hub."
"The price is not much cheaper. So, there is room for improvement in the pricing."
"I suggest integrating additional features, such as incorporating Amazon Pinpoint or Amazon Connect as bundled offerings, rather than deploying them as separate services."
"Could include features that make it easier to scale."
"AI processing or cleaning up data would be nice since I don't think it is a feature in Amazon Kinesis right now."
"Amazon Kinesis could improve its pricing to be more competitive, especially for large volumes."
"The solution has a two-minute maximum time delay for live streaming, which could be reduced."
"There is a learning curve. It takes time to learn."
"In terms of improvement, there should be better reporting. You can integrate with reporting solutions but Flink doesn't offer it themselves."
"I am using the Python API and I have found the solution to be underdeveloped compared to others. There needs to be better integration with notebooks to allow for more practical development."
"In a future release, they could improve on making the error descriptions more clear."
"Apache Flink is very powerful, but it can be challenging for beginners because it requires prior experience with similar tools and technologies, such as Kafka and batch processing."
"There are more libraries that are missing and also maybe more capabilities for machine learning."
"The technical support from Apache is not good; support needs to be improved. I would rate them from one to ten as not good."
"PyFlink is not as fully featured as Python itself, so there are some limitations to what you can do with it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Under $1,000 per month."
"I think for us, with Amazon Kinesis, if we have to set up our own Kafka or cluster, it will be very time-consuming. If one considers the aforementioned aspect, Amazon Kinesis is a cheap tool."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Amazon Kinesis is an expensive solution."
"The product falls on a bit of an expensive side."
"Amazon Kinesis pricing is sometimes reasonable and sometimes could be better, depending on the planning, so it's a five out of ten for me."
"The fee is based on the number of hours the service is running."
"The solution's pricing is fair."
"The solution is open-source, which is free."
"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
"It's an open-source solution."
"It's an open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Retailer
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Kinesis?
Amazon Kinesis and Lambda pricing is competitive, but we noticed that scaling and large volumes could potentially increase costs significantly.
What needs improvement with Amazon Kinesis?
We are contemplating moving away from Amazon Kinesis primarily because of the cost. It is very useful, but if we write our own analytics and data processing pipeline, it would be much cheaper for u...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Kinesis?
We use Amazon Kinesis for stream processing. We get events from on-premise devices to the cloud. We get many device events and we have to process these events that are coming from the devices. To p...
What needs improvement with Apache Flink?
Apache could improve Apache Flink by providing more functionality, as they need to fully support data integration. The connectors are still very few for Apache Flink. There is a lack of functionali...
What is your primary use case for Apache Flink?
I am working with Apache Flink, which is the tool we use for data integration. Apache Flink is for data, and we are working on the data integration project, not big data, using Apache Flink and Apa...
What advice do you have for others considering Apache Flink?
We are not using Apache Flink in its advanced window capabilities. We are using the Apache Flink job in Apache SeaTunnel, meaning we can write the code inside Apache SeaTunnel. Currently, we are mo...
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Kinesis, AWS Kinesis, Kinesis
Flink
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Zillow, Netflix, Sonos
LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Kinesis vs. Apache Flink and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.