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Amazon Kinesis vs Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Organizations benefit financially from Amazon Kinesis through improved data processing, cost savings, and seamless AWS service integration.
Sentiment score
4.7
Confluent Cloud's Kafka offers cost-effective scalability and reliability, enhancing data processing and schema management despite higher costs.
With Lambda, there is no need for data transfer charges, which is beneficial for less frequent workloads.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Returns depend on the application you deploy and the amount of benefits you are getting, which depends on how many applications you are deploying, what are the sorts of applications, and what are the requirements.
Chief Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Amazon Kinesis support varies, with response quality influenced by user-AWS relationships and complexity of the issues faced.
Sentiment score
6.8
Apache Kafka support on Confluent Cloud is praised for timely and competent assistance, with high user satisfaction ratings.
We receive prompt support from AWS solution architects or TAMs.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
I was getting prompt responses, and it was nicely handled regarding the support.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate them eight if 10 was the best and one was the worst.
Chief Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon Kinesis offers robust scalability with sharding and auto-scaling, ideal for high data throughput, despite some cost considerations.
Sentiment score
5.8
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is scalable and flexible, though some users report reliability issues when scaling.
Amazon Kinesis provides auto-scaling with streams that handle large volumes well.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the scalability of Amazon Kinesis as a nine.
Director of Software Development at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
According to me, it is quite scalable in terms of all the data it can handle and stream.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon Kinesis is reliable with minor issues, praised for consistent performance and effective fault-tolerance features.
Sentiment score
6.0
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is stable and reliable, with occasional issues in high traffic and dashboard access.
I would rate the stability of Amazon Kinesis as high, giving it a 10.
Director of Software Development at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Kinesis users seek enhancements in data aggregation, integration, automation, retention, cost reduction, compatibility, machine learning, and documentation.
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud needs improvements in integrations, user interface, cost, monitoring, and configuration for enhanced functionality.
There is no lack of functions in Amazon Kinesis. Functionality-wise, we feel it's complete.
Director of Software Development at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Amazon Kinesis could improve its pricing to be more competitive, especially for large volumes.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Regarding additional improvements, I would say probably around error handling, where when we encounter errors specific to our response structures and everything, or the tables or anything of that nature, it would be better if we were prompted with better error handling mechanisms.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If it were easier to configure clusters and had more straightforward configuration, high-level API abstraction in the APIs could improve it.
Partner at SouJava
Observability and monitoring are areas that could be enhanced.
Chief Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Kinesis offers competitive pricing, though costs rise with scaling, large data volumes, and Kinesis Analytics can be expensive.
Enterprise users of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud find pricing accessible but warn of potential cost surges with added features.
Amazon Kinesis and Lambda pricing is competitive, but we noticed that scaling and large volumes could potentially increase costs significantly.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
There was back and forth with the team regarding the cost, but overall, I feel it would have been easier to handle if there were a mechanism that let us know when the credits were being fully utilized or when the limits were getting crossed.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Kinesis provides easy, scalable streaming with AWS integration, supporting analytics and monitoring without complex infrastructure management.
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud enables scalable, efficient real-time data processing with seamless platform integration and advanced management features.
Amazon Kinesis integrates easily with the AWS environment.
Director of Software Development at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Lambda's scalability, seamless integration with other AWS services, and support for multiple programming languages are very beneficial.
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
These features are important due to scalability and resiliency.
Chief Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
This helped a lot with regard to log monitoring and many other streaming use cases where we were able to get all the data in one place and stream it at a quicker rate.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The Kafka Streams API helps with real-time data transformations and aggregations.
Partner at SouJava
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Kinesis
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Kafka on Confluent C...
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon Kinesis is 4.5%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is 0.7%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Kinesis4.5%
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud0.7%
Other94.8%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

CD
AWS Cloud Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real-time streaming and seamless integration enhance workloads with room for competitive pricing improvements
Amazon Kinesis is easy to get started with, provides good documentation, and has a multilang daemon interface that makes it programming-language agnostic. The throughput is convenient for processing volumes out of the box and does not require complex configurations. It also provides auto-scaling with different partition keys into various shards. Lambda's scalability, seamless integration with other AWS services, and support for multiple programming languages are very beneficial.
AF
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has unified log streams from multiple systems and accelerated issue tracking through streamlined setup
I think Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud can be improved by probably working more around Confluent or the tool. In my opinion, it should utilize the response structures in a better way or be able to detect if there is any variable or if there is any data structure that is mismatched, as it would be easier than us manually having to put in the exact name in order for it to match the response. Regarding additional improvements, I would say probably around error handling, where when we encounter errors specific to our response structures and everything, or the tables or anything of that nature, it would be better if we were prompted with better error handling mechanisms. I do not think there are any other improvements Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud needs, aside from error handling and response structures.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
5%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Kinesis?
Amazon Kinesis's main purpose is to provide near real-time data streaming at a consistent 2Mbps rate, which is really impressive.
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 needs improvement with Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
I think Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud can be improved by probably working more around Confluent or the tool. In my opinion, it should utilize the response structures in a better way or be able to...
What is your primary use case for Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
I have used Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud for one of my projects with regard to log monitoring. My main use case for Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud in that project was mainly streaming of the lo...
What advice do you have for others considering Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
My advice to others looking into using Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is that it is easier and has a low learning curve. If there is any use case regarding streaming, I would suggest starting off ...
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Kinesis, AWS Kinesis, Kinesis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Zillow, Netflix, Sonos
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Kinesis vs. Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.