Apache Flink vs Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud comparison

Apache and Confluent are both solutions in the Streaming Analytics category. Apache is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Confluent is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.5. Apache holds a 12.3% mindshare in SA, compared to Confluent’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Confluent users who would recommend it.

Apache Flink

Read 19 Apache Flink reviews

3,653 Views
3,653 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Apache Kafka on Confluent C...

Read 15 Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud reviews

1,403 Views
84 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Apache Flink

Apache Kafka on Confluent C...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Flink and Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Streaming Analytics solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Flink vs. Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Flink vs. Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud

December 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:

Categories and Ranking

Apache Flink

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 12.3%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is 0.5%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Apache Flink	12.3%
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud	0.5%
Other	87.2%

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

Aswini Atibudhi

Distinguished AI Leader at Walmart Global Tech at Walmart

Enables robust real-time data processing but documentation needs refinement

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. It's essential to have a clear foundation; hence, it can be tough for beginners. However, once they grasp the concepts and have examples or references, it becomes easier. Intermediate users who are integrating with Kafka or other sources may find it smoother. After setting up and understanding the concepts, it becomes quite stable and scalable, allowing for customization of jobs. Every software, including Apache Flink, has room for improvement as it evolves. One key area for enhancement is user-friendliness and the developer experience; improving documentation and API specifications is essential, as they can currently be verbose and complex. Debugging and local testing pose challenges for newcomers, particularly when learning about concepts such as time semantics and state handling. Although the APIs exist, they aren't intuitive enough. We also need to simplify operational procedures, such as developing tools and tuning Flink clusters, as these processes can be quite complex. Additionally, implementing one-click rollback for failures and improving state management during dynamic scaling while retaining the last states is vital, as the current large states pose scaling challenges.

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Ashier Fernandes

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ease of usage, even for complex tasks, stands out."

"The documentation is very good."

"Another feature is how Flink handles its radiuses. It has something called the checkpointing concept. You're dealing with billions and billions of requests, so your system is going to fail in large storage systems. Flink handles this by using the concept of checkpointing and savepointing, where they write the aggregated state into some separate storage. So in case of failure, you can basically recall from that state and come back."

"Apache Flink's best feature is its data streaming tool."

"Apache Flink allows you to reduce latency and process data in real-time, making it ideal for such scenarios."

"The event processing function is the most useful or the most used function. The filter function and the mapping function are also very useful because we have a lot of data to transform. For example, we store a lot of information about a person, and when we want to retrieve this person's details, we need all the details. In the map function, we can actually map all persons based on their age group. That's why the mapping function is very useful. We can really get a lot of events, and then we keep on doing what we need to do."

"Easy to deploy and manage."

"Allows us to process batch data, stream to real-time and build pipelines."

More Apache Flink pros

"Overall, I think it's a good experience. Apache Kafka can be quite complex and difficult to maintain on your own, so using Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud makes it much easier to use it without worrying about setup and maintenance."

"Confluent helped me to streamline all those logs into one place, and then I was consuming those logs that were produced, which made it very much easier because I know Kafka and using Confluent made it much simpler."

"The state-saving feature is very much appreciated. It allows me to rewind a certain process if I see an error and then reprocess it."

"It's very fast and helps us to create the project, guarantee the message delivery, and the performance."

"Kafka provides handy properties that allow us to directly configure the data, whether to keep it or discard it after use."

"Kafka and Confluent Cloud have proven to be cost-effective, especially when compared to other tools. In a recent BI integration program over the past year, we assessed multiple use cases spanning ship-to-shore and various Azure integrations. Our findings revealed that Confluent Kafka performed exceptionally well, standing out alongside Genesys and Azure Event Hubs. While these three are top contenders, the choice among other tools depends on the specific use case and project requirements. The customer initially used tools like SMQs, FITRA, and Stream for real-time data processing. However, after our recommendation, Confluent Cloud proved to be a superior choice, capable of replacing these three tools and simplifying their data infrastructure. This shift to a single tool, Confluent Cloud, streamlined their operations, making maintenance and management more efficient for their internal projects."

"The order guarantee of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud and the amount of throughput it can handle are valuable; the fact that the consumer pulls the data, not the broker, makes it more resilient and more reliable compared to other technologies."

"The benefits that I have seen from having a real-time architecture include better velocity for developers; instead of developing many of those capabilities in each team, we can rely on Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud to provide those functionalities we want, and the teams can focus on their own business instead of providing all sorts of APIs and dependencies to other domains, allowing everyone to run faster."

More Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud pros

Cons

"The technical support from Apache is not good; support needs to be improved. I would rate them from one to ten as not good."

"The machine learning library is not very flexible."

"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."

"Apache Flink's documentation should be available in more languages."

"Apache should provide more examples and sample code related to streaming to help me better adapt and utilize the tool."

"The TimeWindow feature is a bit tricky. The timing of the content and the windowing is a bit changed in 1.11. They have introduced watermarks. A watermark is basically associating every data with a timestamp. The timestamp could be anything, and we can provide the timestamp. So, whenever I receive a tweet, I can actually assign a timestamp, like what time did I get that tweet. The watermark helps us to uniquely identify the data. Watermarks are tricky if you use multiple events in the pipeline. For example, you have three resources from different locations, and you want to combine all those inputs and also perform some kind of logic. When you have more than one input screen and you want to collect all the information together, you have to apply TimeWindow all. That means that all the events from the upstream or from the up sources should be in that TimeWindow, and they were coming back. Internally, it is a batch of events that may be getting collected every five minutes or whatever timing is given. Sometimes, the use case for TimeWindow is a bit tricky. It depends on the application as well as on how people have given this TimeWindow. This kind of documentation is not updated. Even the test case documentation is a bit wrong. It doesn't work. Flink has updated the version of Apache Flink, but they have not updated the testing documentation. Therefore, I have to manually understand it. We have also been exploring failure handling. I was looking into changelogs for which they have posted the future plans and what are they going to deliver. We have two concerns regarding this, which have been noted down. I hope in the future that they will provide this functionality. Integration of Apache Flink with other metric services or failure handling data tools needs some kind of update or its in-depth knowledge is required in the documentation. We have a use case where we want to actually analyze or get analytics about how much data we process and how many failures we have. For that, we need to use Tomcat, which is an analytics tool for implementing counters. We can manage reports in the analyzer. This kind of integration is pretty much straightforward. They say that people must be well familiar with all the things before using this type of integration. They have given this complete file, which you can update, but it took some time. There is a learning curve with it, which consumed a lot of time. It is evolving to a newer version, but the documentation is not demonstrating that update. The documentation is not well incorporated. Hopefully, these things will get resolved now that they are implementing it. Failure is another area where it is a bit rigid or not that flexible. We never use this for scaling because complexity is very high in case of a failure. Processing and providing the scaled data back to Apache Flink is a bit challenging. They have this concept of offsetting, which could be simplified."

"In terms of improvement, there should be better reporting. You can integrate with reporting solutions but Flink doesn't offer it themselves."

"Amazon's CloudFormation templates don't allow for direct deployment in the private subnet."

More Apache Flink cons

"The administration port could be more extensive."

"I thought Confluent would stop me when I crossed the credits, but it did not, and then I got charged."

"In terms of improvements, observability and monitoring are areas that could be enhanced. They are lacking in terms of observability and monitoring compared to other products."

"Regarding real-time data usage, there were challenges with CDC (Change Data Capture) integrations. Specifically, with PyTRAN, we encountered difficulties. We recommended using our on-premises Kaspersky as an alternative to PyTRAN for that specific use case due to issues with CDC store configuration and log reading challenges with the iton components."

"Some areas for improvement in Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud include issues faced during migration with Kubernetes pods."

"Maybe in terms of Apache Kafka's integration with other Microsoft tools, our company faced some challenges."

"The clustering is a little hard for juniors and clients. It's suitable for senior engineers, but the configuration and clustering are very hard for juniors."

"There could be an in-built feature for data analysis."

More Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."

"It's an open-source solution."

"It's an open source."

"The solution is open-source, which is free."

"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."

"I think the pricing is fair, but Confluent requires a little bit more thinking because the price can go up really quickly when it comes to premium connectors."

"I consider that the product's price falls under the middle range category."

"Regarding pricing, Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is not a cheap tool. The right use case would justify the cost. It might make sense if you have a high volume of data that you can leverage to generate value for the business. But if you don't have those requirements, there are likely cheaper solutions you could use instead."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Retailer

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Flink?

The product helps us to create both simple and complex data processing tasks. Over time, it has facilitated integration and navigation across multiple data sources tailored to each client's needs. ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Flink?

The solution is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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Also Known As

Flink

No data available

Overview

Apache Flink is an open-source batch and stream data processing engine. It can be used for batch, micro-batch, and real-time processing. Flink is a programming model that combines the benefits of batch processing and streaming analytics by providing a unified programming interface for both data sources, allowing users to write programs that seamlessly switch between the two modes. It can also be used for interactive queries.

Flink can be used as an alternative to MapReduce for executing iterative algorithms on large datasets in parallel. It was developed specifically for large to extremely large data sets that require complex iterative algorithms.

Flink is a fast and reliable framework developed in Java, Scala, and Python. It runs on the cluster that consists of data nodes and managers. It has a rich set of features that can be used out of the box in order to build sophisticated applications.

Flink has a robust API and is ready to be used with Hadoop, Cassandra, Hive, Impala, Kafka, MySQL/MariaDB, Neo4j, as well as any other NoSQL database.

Apache Flink Features

Distributed execution of streaming programs on clusters of computers
Support for multiple data sources and sinks: this includes Hadoop file systems, databases, and other data sources
Streaming SQL query engine with support for windowing functions
Low latency query execution in milliseconds
Runs in a distributed fashion: it can be deployed on multiple machines or nodes to increase performance and reliability of data processing pipelines.
Powerful API that supports both batch and streaming applications
Runs on clusters of commodity hardware with minimal configuration
Can be integrated with other technologies, such as Apache Spark for complex data mining

Apache Flink Benefits

Ease of use: Flink has an intuitive API and provides high-level abstractions for handling data streams. Even beginners in the field can work with the platform with ease.

Fault tolerance: Flink can automatically detect and recover from failures in the system.

Scalability: Flink scales to thousands of nodes. It can run on clusters of any size and the user does not have to worry about managing the cluster.

Reviews from Real Users

Apache Flink stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its low latency and its user-friendly interface. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

The head of data and analytics at a computer software company notes, “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.”

Ertugrul A., manager at a computer software company, writes, “It's usable and affordable. It is user-friendly and the reporting is good.”

Apache

Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud provides real-time data streaming with seamless integration, enhanced scalability, and efficient data processing, recognized for its real-time architecture, ease of use, and reliable multi-cloud operations while effectively managing large data volumes.

Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is designed to handle large-scale data operations across different cloud environments. It supports real-time data streaming, crucial for applications in transaction processing, change data capture, microservices, and enterprise data movement. Users benefit from features like schema registry and error handling, which ensure efficient and reliable operations. While the platform offers extensive connector support and reduced maintenance, there are areas requiring improvement, including better data analysis features, PyTRAN CDC integration, and cost-effective access to premium connectors. Migrating with Kubernetes and managing message states are areas for development as well. Despite these challenges, it remains a robust option for organizations seeking to distribute data effectively for analytics and real-time systems across industries like retail and finance.

What are the key features of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?

Seamless Integration: Connects with many data sources seamlessly.
Enhanced Scalability: Easily scales to manage increasing data loads.
Schema Registry: Maintains compatibility and evolution of schemas.
Offset Management: Tracks consumer progress efficiently.
Error Handling: Offers mechanisms to manage inaccuracies effectively.
Connector Support: Extensive connectors for diverse third-party tools.

What benefits should users seek in reviews?

Reliability: Consistent performance in multi-cloud environments.
Ease of Use: Simplified operations and maintenance.
Developer Efficiency: Streamlined features that save developers time.
Data Volume Handling: Capable of managing large-scale data streaming.

In industries like retail and finance, Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is implemented to manage real-time location tracking, event-driven systems, and enterprise-level data distribution. It aids in operations that require robust data streaming, such as CDC, log processing, and analytics data distribution, providing a significant edge in data management and operational efficiency.

Confluent

Sample Customers

LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Apache Flink vs. Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud

December 2025

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