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Apache Flink vs Starburst Galaxy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Flink is 7.9%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Flink7.9%
Starburst Galaxy1.7%
Other90.4%
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.
NK
Advisory Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies
Unified data querying has accelerated petabyte-scale analytics and simplified dashboard delivery
Starburst Galaxy offers me several best features, which include very fast querying results, automatic indexing of data for long tables, a cost-based optimizer which reduces the time to query large tables, and an agentic feature that lets me talk to my data.I find myself relying most on querying from different databases as well as automatic indexing in my day-to-day work, as I am a data science architect who needs to get the queries in a very short period of time. Starburst Galaxy serves the best purpose for me because if my SLAs are not met with my customers, they will raise a case, and I have tried many other tools, but Starburst Galaxy fits the best. Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization since we were struggling with Denodo and Dremio, which had their own features but were not helpful in querying large amounts of data, especially semi-structured or unstructured data. Starburst Galaxy addresses this with many YAML files and manifest files for automated maintenance, and it helps reduce the small file problem in different HDFS systems. Additionally, Starburst Galaxy has an MCP server that connects to various agentic pipelines, reducing the time to market for data consumption.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is user-friendly and the reporting is good."
"Flink moved on to becoming a standard technology for location platform."
"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."
"This is truly a real-time solution."
"What I appreciate best about Apache Flink is that it's open source and geared towards a distributed stream processing framework."
"The documentation is very good."
"The ease of usage, even for complex tasks, stands out."
"The end-to-end latency was drastically reduced, and our capability of handling high throughput has increased by using Flink."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"Starburst Galaxy has significantly improved our data architecture flexibility and performance management by solving cross-database query challenges and enabling us to utilize iceberg tables externally across our entire data ecosystem."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"Starburst Galaxy serves as our primary SQL-based data processing engine, a strategic decision driven by its seamless integration with our AWS cloud infrastructure and its ability to deliver high performance with low-latency responses."
"Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to rethink the strategy for data and architect data differently; instead of having multiple data marts and siloed data marts, we have a unified vision, and that is how it is changing."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."
 

Cons

"Apache Flink should improve its data capability and data migration."
"I am using the Python API and I have found the solution to be underdeveloped compared to others. There needs to be better integration with notebooks to allow for more practical development."
"In terms of improvement, there should be better reporting. You can integrate with reporting solutions but Flink doesn't offer it themselves."
"The technical support from Apache is not good; support needs to be improved. I would rate them from one to ten as not good."
"Flink has become a lot more stable but the machine learning library is still not very flexible."
"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."
"There is a learning curve. It takes time to learn."
"Apache should provide more examples and sample code related to streaming to help me better adapt and utilize the tool."
"As a hosted option, I wish I had more control over the cluster configuration, specifically regarding some of the more advanced options."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."
"Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose."
"I think there are areas of improvement with respect to AI adaptability, and also in general, the amount of connectors working with other tools are areas where it can be expanded."
"I would like to see better alerting integrations for failures and errors in scheduled tasks and maintenance jobs."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Retailer
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose. We rely on third-party tools for ingesti...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
My main use case for Starburst Galaxy is querying petabytes of data across vast data sources, and I use a federated query engine to join data sources from different databases and then join them usi...
 

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. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.