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Apache Flink vs Apache Pulsar comparison

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Executive Summary

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
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Pulsar
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 6.7%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 2.8%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Flink6.7%
Apache Pulsar2.8%
Other90.5%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Sanjay Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Architect at IBM
Streaming workflows have improved data integration and support real-time pipelines across platforms
We are not using Apache Flink in its advanced window capabilities. We are using the Apache Flink job in Apache SeaTunnel, meaning we can write the code inside Apache SeaTunnel. Currently, we are moving; both solutions are there. We are doing it on-premises with the help of Kubernetes and OpenShift. The main reason why Apache Flink is better is that it has more functions, and being open source with easy code in Apache SeaTunnel helps us achieve that. Cost is a major issue. I would rate the stability of the product as an eight. For Apache Flink, the final point can be rated an eight. I can recommend Apache Flink to other users for streaming support, and I am recommending it. I would rate this review an eight overall.
it_user1087029 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Vlaanderen connect.
The solution can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code
The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform. It operates differently than a traditional streaming platform with storage and computing handled separately. It scales easier and better than Kafka which can be stubborn. You can even make it act like Kafka because it understands Kafka APIs. There are even companies that will sell you Kafka but underneath it is Apache Pulsar. The solution is very compatible because it can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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. We use Apache Flink to control our clients' installations."
"Apache Flink is meant for low latency applications. You take one event opposite if you want to maintain a certain state. When another event comes and you want to associate those events together, in-memory state management was a key feature for us."
"The ease of usage, even for complex tasks, stands out."
"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."
"With Flink, it provides out-of-the-box checkpointing and state management. It helps us in that way. When Storm used to restart, sometimes we would lose messages. With Flink, it provides guaranteed message processing, which helped us. It also helped us with maintenance or restarts."
"We are very happy with the product, and we have been able to achieve all of the use cases that we are expected to deliver for our customers."
"The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform."
 

Cons

"In terms of stability with Flink, it is something that you have to deal with every time. Stability is the number one problem that we have seen with Flink, and it really depends on the kind of problem that you're trying to solve."
"The technical support from Apache is not good; support needs to be improved. I would rate them from one to ten as not good."
"There is room for improvement in the initial setup process."
"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."
"Apache should provide more examples and sample code related to streaming to help me better adapt and utilize the tool."
"Apache Flink's documentation should be available in more languages."
"One way to improve Flink would be to enhance integration between different ecosystems."
"Failure is another area where it is a bit rigid or not that flexible."
"Documentation is poor because much of it is in Chinese with no English translation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
"The solution is open-source, which is free."
"It's an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
"It's an open source."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Retailer
15%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Apache Flink?
I am working with Apache Flink, which is the tool we use for data integration. Apache Flink is for data, and we are working on the data integration project, not big data, using Apache Flink and Apa...
What advice do you have for others considering Apache Flink?
We are not using Apache Flink in its advanced window capabilities. We are using the Apache Flink job in Apache SeaTunnel, meaning we can write the code inside Apache SeaTunnel. Currently, we are mo...
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Also Known As

Flink
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.
Information Not Available
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