Amazon MSK vs PubSub+ Platform comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Solace are both solutions in the Streaming Analytics category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.1, while Solace is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.1% mindshare in SA, compared to Solace’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Solace users who would recommend it.

Amazon MSK

Read 14 Amazon MSK reviews

2,786 Views
2,730 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

PubSub+ Platform

Read 17 PubSub+ Platform reviews

2,373 Views
997 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon MSK

PubSub+ Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Amazon MSK and PubSub+ Platform compete in the streaming data solutions category. While both offer valuable features, PubSub+ Platform is generally considered superior due to its comprehensive feature set, which justifies its higher cost.

Features: Amazon MSK integrates seamlessly with AWS services, simplifies Apache Kafka management, and automates important configurations such as VPC. PubSub+ Platform excels with extensive messaging capabilities, real-time event streaming, and flexible deployment options across cloud and hybrid environments.

Room for Improvement: Amazon MSK could enhance its support for smaller workloads to improve cost-effectiveness. It might also need better differentiation in features compared to its competitors. PubSub+ Platform could improve topic hierarchy management and the learning curve for optimal configuration. Simplifying multi-cloud integration could further extend its reach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon MSK benefits from the AWS managed service infrastructure, providing smooth deployment experiences and leveraging AWS's established support channels. PubSub+ Platform offers versatile deployment models and stands out due to its focus on hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. It provides responsive and personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon MSK is attractive for its lower setup costs and the value it offers through integrated AWS services, particularly appealing to existing AWS users. PubSub+ Platform, although requiring a higher initial investment, delivers significant ROI with its robust feature set and scalability, making it ideal for enterprises seeking comprehensive event-driven architectures.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon MSK vs. PubSub+ Platform Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MSK vs. PubSub+ Platform

July 2025

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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

7.0

PubSub+ Platform users see efficiency and cost benefits, though some find Kafka more economical long-term due to complex returns.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

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

7.5

PubSub+ Platform offers exceptional, responsive customer service with efficient problem resolution and user-driven feature development.

They can manage most of our queries, and for what they cannot manage, they guide us through the process of finding out.

SYED SHAAZ

Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI

Amazon's support is excellent.

ParsuramPanigrahi

CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

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

7.0

PubSub+ Platform seamlessly scales across IT environments, excelling in adaptability, performance, and transaction processing despite some complexity concerns.

As a B2B enterprise client, our clientele consists of large ticket clients but low amounts of users.

SYED SHAAZ

Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI

The functionality for scaling comes out of the box and is very effective.

ParsuramPanigrahi

CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

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

8.2

PubSub+ Platform delivers stable, reliable performance with zero downtime, handling massive data efficiently and ensuring high availability.

It doesn't require any maintenance on my end yet, as I haven't had any issues.

Mauro Velasco Sarmiento

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

Room For Improvement

Amazon MSK struggles with integration, configuration complexities, high costs, and operational challenges compared to services like Kinesis.

PubSub+ Platform needs improvements in integration, user management, dashboard functionality, and open-source support for enhanced application deployment.

I had to remove and drop all the clusters and recreate them again, which is complicated in a production environment.

Mauro Velasco Sarmiento

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

There are preset configurations and limited configurations that we can set for our unique use case.

SYED SHAAZ

Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI

The increase in cloud costs by 50% to 60% does not justify the savings.

ParsuramPanigrahi

CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

It was as impressive as Kafka, better than Kafka based on my experience working on the Solace and Kafka white paper.

reviewer2714190

freelancer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

Setup Cost

Amazon MSK is competitively priced with variable costs, appealing to enterprise users but potentially expensive for some.

Enterprise users value PubSub+ for its clear pricing, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, appreciating the free version for initial evaluation.

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.

SYED SHAAZ

Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI

Once we started using Kafka, our cloud costs rose by 50% to 60%.

ParsuramPanigrahi

CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

Valuable Features

Amazon MSK integrates AWS services, offering cost-effective, automated scaling, ease of use, real-time analytics, encryption, and event sourcing.

PubSub+ Platform offers seamless integration, scalability, and WAN optimization with intuitive management, efficient data distribution, and advanced topic filtering.

It starts checking how the brokers are functioning, and automatically, Amazon MSK tries to resolve all the problems.

Mauro Velasco Sarmiento

Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

That data comes through Amazon MSK into our platforms in real-time and gets converted into actionable outputs for different teams including customer support.

SYED SHAAZ

Co-Founder & CTO at Photios AI

The ability to handle everything, including installation, with minimal human intervention, is a strong point.

ParsuramPanigrahi

CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon MSK report

The solution's ability to decouple message producers and consumers allows us to have high cohesion and low coupling, making it an excellent solution for that purpose.

reviewer2714190

freelancer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the PubSub+ Platform report

Categories and Ranking

Amazon MSK

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

6th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PubSub+ Platform

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

13th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Message Queue (MQ) Software (8th), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) (2nd), Event Monitoring (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Amazon MSK is 6.1%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PubSub+ Platform is 3.0%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon MSK	6.1%
PubSub+ Platform	3.0%
Other	90.9%

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

SYED SHAAZ

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.

Read full review

BhanuChidigam

Sofware Engineering Manager at Wells Fargo

Performs well, high availability, and helpful support

We use approximately four people for the maintenance of the solution. My advice to others is this solution has high throughput and is used for many stock exchanges. For business critical use cases, such as processing financial transactions at a quick speed, I would recommend this solution. I rate PubSub+ Event Broker an eight out of ten.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

32%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon MSK?

See all answers

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 ...

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What needs improvement with PubSub+ Event Broker?

Regarding improving the PubSub+ Platform, I'm not sure about the pricing aspect, but I heard that it is quite expensive compared to Kafka. That's the only concern I can mention; otherwise, it was a...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for PubSub+ Event Broker?

My typical use case for the PubSub+ Platform is as an event-driven solution for communication between two components.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering PubSub+ Event Broker?

I have experience working with Kafka, PubSub+ Platform, and IBM MQ, all three of them. We are customers, meaning my company uses Solace. We use it and customize it based on our needs. Based on my e...

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Comparisons

Azure Stream Analytics vs Amazon MSK

Compared 33% of the time

Confluent vs Amazon MSK

Compared 18% of the time

Apache Flink vs Amazon MSK

Compared 16% of the time

Google Cloud Dataflow vs Amazon MSK

Compared 7% of the time

Cloudera DataFlow vs Amazon MSK

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon MSK Competitors

Apache Kafka vs PubSub+ Platform

Compared 24% of the time

IBM MQ vs PubSub+ Platform

Compared 18% of the time

ActiveMQ vs PubSub+ Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Software AG Universal Messaging vs PubSub+ Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Real-Time Innovations DDS vs PubSub+ Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More PubSub+ Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MSK

September 2025

Download Amazon MSK product report

Buyer's Guide

PubSub+ Platform

August 2025

Download PubSub+ Platform product report

Also Known As

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka

PubSub+ Event Broker, PubSub+ Event Portal

Overview

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) is a fully managed service that enables you to build and run applications that use Apache Kafka to process streaming data. Amazon MSK provides the control-plane operations, such as those for creating, updating, and deleting clusters.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

PubSub+ Platform supports real-time shipment tracking, IT event management in multiclouds, and connects legacy and cloud-native systems for application modernization. It's utilized for trading, streaming market data, and app-to-app messaging, enhancing event-driven architectures with reliable message queuing.

Organizations adopt PubSub+ to efficiently transport events across hybrid and cloud environments, managing audit trails and long processing tasks. The platform aids integration through dynamic data publication, event mesh capabilities, and WAN optimization. Features like seamless integration, protocol agnosticism, and flexible topic hierarchy enhance versatility. Solace Admin Utility simplifies configuration and management, while the event portal allows hybrid deployment.

What are the key features of PubSub+ Platform?

Dynamic Data Publication: Enables flexible and responsive data handling.
Event Mesh Capabilities: Facilitates efficient event transportation.
WAN Optimization: Enhances data transfer across networks.
Protocol Agnosticism: Supports a wide range of protocols for integration.
Flexible Topic Hierarchy: Allows detailed and organized data exchange.
Solace Admin Utility: Provides intuitive configuration and management.
Granular Topic Filtering: Offers precise data filtering options.
Guaranteed Messaging: Ensures reliable message delivery.

What benefits or ROI should users consider?

Seamless Integration: Reduces complexity in connecting systems.
Performance and Scaling: Supports high-load environments efficiently.
Asynchronous Messaging: Improves application performance.
Robust Support System: Provides guidance and problem resolution.

PubSub+ is implemented in industries requiring real-time data handling and integration between disparate systems. Financial institutions use it for trading and streaming market data, while logistics companies benefit from real-time shipment tracking. Enterprises apply it to modernize operations by connecting legacy systems with cloud-native applications, enhancing their architecture and ensuring data reliability across environments.

Solace

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

FxPro, TP ICAP, Barclays, Airtel, American Express, Cobalt, Legal & General, LSE Group, Akuna Capital, Azure Information Technology, Brand.net, Canadian Securities Exchange, Core Transport Technologies, Crédit Agricole, Fluent Trade Technologies, Harris Corporation, Korea Exchange, Live E!, Mercuria Energy, Myspace, NYSE Technologies, Pico, RBC Capital Markets, Standard Chartered Bank, Unibet

Buyer's Guide

Amazon MSK vs. PubSub+ Platform

July 2025

Free Report: Amazon MSK vs. PubSub+ Platform

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