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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
5.1
Amazon MSK enhances ROI through reduced integration time, flexibility, and cost-efficient experimentation, outperforming Confluent in innovation speed.
Sentiment score
7.0
Apache Kafka offers substantial returns, especially in high-value applications, with enhanced data buffering, cost savings, and ease of use.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Amazon MSK support is generally satisfactory with expertise, but experiences vary based on support plans and perceived decline over time.
Sentiment score
5.8
Apache Kafka's support is community-driven, with varying user experiences and enhanced options available through paid subscriptions and consultants.
Amazon's support is excellent.
There is plenty of community support available online.
The Apache community provides support for the open-source version.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Amazon MSK offers scalable, flexible serverless and classic options, efficiently handling user demands despite occasional manual interventions.
Sentiment score
7.8
Apache Kafka is praised for its robust scalability, efficiently handling high data throughput, with some challenges in cluster management.
The functionality for scaling comes out of the box and is very effective.
Customers have not faced issues with user growth or data streaming needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Amazon MSK is generally seen as stable, rated 8-9/10, with 99.9% availability but limited long-term usage insights.
Sentiment score
7.7
Apache Kafka is stable and performs well with high data volumes, though some configurations may affect its reliability.
Apache Kafka is stable.
This feature of Apache Kafka has helped enhance our system stability when handling high volume data.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon MSK struggles with integration, pricing, setup complexity, limited schema support, and lacks default connectors, complicating user experience.
Enhancing Kafka involves user-friendly UI, improved monitoring, reduced ZooKeeper dependency, better documentation, flexibility, and integration with other platforms.
The increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings.
The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds.
We are always trying to find the best configs, which is a challenge.
A more user-friendly interface and better management consoles with improved documentation could be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon MSK offers competitive pricing for large workloads, but small use cases may incur higher costs, similar to Confluent.
Apache Kafka is free to use, but costs vary for managed services and enterprise solutions, potentially exceeding 100,000 euros annually.
Once we started using Kafka, our cloud costs rose by 50% to 60%.
The open-source version of Apache Kafka results in minimal costs, mainly linked to accessing documentation and limited support.
Its pricing is reasonable.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon MSK integrates with AWS services, offering cost-effectiveness, scalability, and ease of use for data pipelines and migrations.
Apache Kafka excels in scalability, real-time streaming, and flexibility, ideal for large data volumes and event-driven architectures.
The scalability and usability are quite remarkable.
Apache Kafka is effective when dealing with large volumes of data flowing at high speeds, requiring real-time processing.
It allows the use of data in motion, allowing data to propagate from one source to another while it is in motion.
The impact of Apache Kafka's scalability features on my organization and data processing capabilities depends on how many messages each company wants to receive.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon MSK
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
6th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Kafka
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon MSK is 6.5%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

FNU AKSHANSH - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines our processes, and we don't need to configure any VPCs; it's automatic
We don't have many use cases involving ingesting large amounts of data and scaling up and down. We have a clear understanding of our data volume, which remains relatively constant throughout the week. While we're aware of other features Amazon MSK offers, we feel confident in our current setup. If our requirements change significantly in the future, we'll reassess our needs and consider adopting Amazon MSK.
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Data streaming transforms real-time data movement with impressive scalability
I worked with Apache Kafka for customers in the financial industry and OTT platforms. They use Kafka particularly for data streaming. Companies offering movie and entertainment as a service, similar to Netflix, use Kafka Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming. It allows the use of data in…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon MSK?
Amazon MSK has significantly improved our organization by building seamless integration between systems.
What needs improvement with Amazon MSK?
I'm not sure exactly what benefit we have because we are using multiple AWS tools. We have AWS DMS, which is also the same as Amazon MSK, and we have Fivetran, which is a third-party website provid...
What is your primary use case for Amazon MSK?
We are currently using Amazon MSK to transfer data from our PostgreSQL database to our DynamoDB, acting as a mediator between those two databases for migration purposes. Our data is in an on-premis...
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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
 

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: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.