Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Apache Flink vs Redpanda 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Flink
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Redpanda
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 14.5%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redpanda is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Aswini Atibudhi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vishal M Godi - PeerSpot reviewer
High-performance message brokering with excellent documentation and an easy setup
The industry standard for this kind of platform is Kafka. Confluent Kafka has acquired it. Kafka is an open-source platform built by Apache. Confluent is the commercial version of it. The major improvement of Redpanda over Kafka is firstly, good documentation. Redpanda's documentation is very easily understandable, and they have a lot of examples. In addition to that, most of the setups include using another technology called Docker, which I am very familiar with. Setting up technologies using Docker is very convenient to me, and Redpanda has provided many templates for that. Redpanda has its own built-in metrics exporter, making it easier to monitor and check performance. What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The setup was not too difficult."
"Apache Flink's best feature is its data streaming tool."
"It is user-friendly and the reporting is good."
"What I appreciate best about Apache Flink is that it's open source and geared towards a distributed stream processing framework."
"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 documentation is very good."
"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."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications."
"The cost savings have been significant."
"I tested it with ten-plus nodes, and it's highly scalable."
"The UI is modern."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the initial setup process."
"The machine learning library is not very flexible."
"There are more libraries that are missing and also maybe more capabilities for machine learning."
"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."
"We have a machine learning team that works with Python, but Apache Flink does not have full support for the language."
"One way to improve Flink would be to enhance integration between different ecosystems. For example, there could be more integration with other big data vendors and platforms similar in scope to how Apache Flink works with Cloudera. Apache Flink is a part of the same ecosystem as Cloudera, and for batch processing it's actually very useful but for real-time processing there could be more development with regards to the big data capabilities amongst the various ecosystems out there."
"In a future release, they could improve on making the error descriptions more clear."
"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."
"Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good."
"When it comes to self-hosting, their documentation could be improved."
"The command-line tools need to be improved. To quickly check the status of the topics and all."
"The version control mechanism must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
"It's an open source."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is open-source, which is free."
"Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
"Redpanda is cheaper than its competitors."
"It's free. Everybody can use it, only support is paid."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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. ...
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.
What needs improvement with Apache Flink?
Apache should provide more examples and sample code related to streaming to help me better adapt and utilize the tool. There is a need for increased awareness and education, especially around best ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redpanda?
Redpanda is actually a commercial platform, but they do provide free versions as well. I've been working only with the free versions.
What needs improvement with Redpanda?
Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good. Maybe ...
What is your primary use case for Redpanda?
I have worked with Redpanda for the past two to three months. Mainly in the tech industry or software industry, there's a huge rise of streaming data. Redpanda serves as a very reliable and fast me...
 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Flink vs. Redpanda and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.