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Amazon MSK vs Apache Kafka comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
4.1
Amazon MSK saves time and money, promotes innovation with flexible pricing, yet some users find costs hard to justify.
Sentiment score
6.3
Apache Kafka users experience improved profitability, scalability, and efficiency, benefiting from cost-effectiveness and customization for timely decision-making.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Amazon MSK support varies; some praise its effectiveness, while others note average service and seek external assistance.
Sentiment score
6.0
Apache Kafka support is community-driven, supplemented by third-party services, with quick responses and extensive online resources available.
They can manage most of our queries, and for what they cannot manage, they guide us through the process of finding out.
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
Amazon's support is excellent.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
The Apache community provides support for the open-source version.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
There is plenty of community support available online.
With Microsoft, expectations are higher because we pay for a license and have a contract.
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Amazon MSK is viewed as scalable, manageable, appealing to various environments, but may require manual scaling adjustments.
Sentiment score
7.7
Apache Kafka is favored for its impressive scalability, efficient data handling, and seamless integration with Kubernetes and distributed environments.
The functionality for scaling comes out of the box and is very effective.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
As a B2B enterprise client, our clientele consists of large ticket clients but low amounts of users.
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
Customers have not faced issues with user growth or data streaming needs.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka is highly scalable and supports horizontal scaling by allowing you to add more brokers to the cluster and increase the number of partitions for a topic.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
I need to enable my solution with high availability and scalability.
Data Architect at Ascendion
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon MSK is stable with high ratings; minor issues are unrelated to MSK, maintaining success rates of 91% under load.
Sentiment score
7.6
Apache Kafka is stable and reliable, though proper configuration is crucial; users experience few stability issues despite evolving APIs.
It doesn't require any maintenance on my end yet, as I haven't had any issues.
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Apache Kafka is stable.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
This feature of Apache Kafka has helped enhance our system stability when handling high volume data.
DevOps Engineer
Apache Kafka is more stable and is very good technology for asynchronous programming.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon MSK struggles with integration, configuration complexities, high costs, and operational challenges compared to services like Kinesis.
Users desire enhancements in Kafka's operational complexity, scalability, monitoring, debugging, and management tools for better user experience.
The increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
The only issue with Amazon MSK that we are facing is the configurations.
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
I had to remove and drop all the clusters and recreate them again, which is complicated in a production environment.
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Operating an Apache Kafka cluster requires expertise in partitioning, application monitoring, and capacity planning.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka groups could introduce themes or profiles of configuration to help manage this complexity without needing expertise.
Senior Principal Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon MSK is competitively priced with variable costs, appealing to enterprise users but potentially expensive for some.
Enterprises favor Apache Kafka for its free open-source model, despite potential costs from managed services and infrastructure.
Once we started using Kafka, our cloud costs rose by 50% to 60%.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
We use Kafka M5 Large instance, and depending on the instances, that is the cost we have, along with storage cost and data transfer costs.
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
From a price perspective, if you are asking about Apache Kafka, I would rate it a nine.
Senior Principal Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
The open-source version of Apache Kafka results in minimal costs, mainly linked to accessing documentation and limited support.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Apache Kafka itself is open source and free to use.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
 

Valuable Features

Amazon MSK integrates AWS services, offering cost-effective, automated scaling, ease of use, real-time analytics, encryption, and event sourcing.
Apache Kafka excels in real-time processing, scalability, and integration, offering robust support for high-volume, event-driven architectures.
The scalability and usability are quite remarkable.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
The best features of Amazon MSK are the real-time analytics that are excellent.
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
Amazon MSK is basically Kafka in the cloud, and when you need to create a cluster of Kafka brokers, Amazon MSK helps with that by automatically creating all the brokers according to the configuration you provide.
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing.
Apache Kafka is particularly valuable for managing high levels of transactions.
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
The best features include high throughput with low latency and support for horizontal scaling.
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon MSK
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
12th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Kafka
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon MSK is 3.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.8%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka3.8%
Amazon MSK3.9%
Other92.3%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

SYED SHAAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI
Improved data streaming and integration challenges prompt search for alternatives
The integration capabilities of Amazon MSK are not very flexible. If you have your own self-managed Kafka, that helps significantly because you can set up configurations. We are considering self-managed Kafka since our product is only one year old. The Kafka integrations are fine, but the configurations are an issue. The only issue with Amazon MSK that we are facing is the configurations. There are preset configurations and limited configurations that we can set for our unique use case. The product could improve by allowing us to set different configurations. I would also like to see Amazon MSK improve in the area of connectors. We are considering Confluent Cloud because they have many more connectors. They have KSQL DB and governance features. It is slightly costlier, but Confluent offers more flexibility with their connectors.
Amandeep Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Airy Software Technologies Private Limited
Event-driven architecture has improved asynchronous communication and supports high throughput
We can improve the high throughput because there are some limitations. We could add something to improve Apache Kafka. Based on my daily usage and analysis, there is a complex setup and management, which is one area requiring improvement. Apache Kafka does not have built-in message delay or scheduling capabilities. Apache Kafka cannot natively schedule messages. Limited message prioritization is also an area requiring improvement. Ordering is limited to a single partition. Large messages affect performance. Apache Kafka is optimized for many small to medium-sized messages, but large payloads increase network usage, increase disk usage, and slow down producers and consumers. I rate Apache Kafka eight out of ten instead of ten out of ten because operating an Apache Kafka cluster requires expertise in partitioning, application monitoring, and capacity planning. Self-managed deployment can become complex as the cluster grows. Pro-managed Apache Kafka services significantly reduce the operational overhead.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon MSK?
The integration capabilities of Amazon MSK are not very flexible. If you have your own self-managed Kafka, that helps significantly because you can set up configurations. We are considering self-ma...
What is your primary use case for Amazon MSK?
We are recently working with Amazon MSK at Fortis, where we have multiple dashboards in our revenue intelligence platform. We are streaming data from different apps into those dashboards. The data ...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon MSK?
We are working with Amazon MSK product, Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka. The main benefits I have seen from using Amazon MSK is that as a B2B enterprise client, we have many SLAs to fulfill. Tra...
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?
From the AWS perspective, the price is on the higher side. However, if you go for Apache Kafka, it is low. From a price perspective, if you are asking about Apache Kafka, I would rate it a nine.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is abundant with features which only an expert-level person will be able to manage due to the high volume and high concurrent expectations. Apache Kafka groups could introduce themes o...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon MSK vs. Apache Kafka and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.