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Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud vs Databricks 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Confluent Cloud's Apache Kafka saves costs and enhances ROI with efficient, reliable data processing, stability, and scalability.
Sentiment score
6.5
Databricks enhances efficiency and ROI, offering scalable solutions and cost savings over traditional Hadoop with easy setup.
Returns depend on the application you deploy and the amount of benefits you are getting, which depends on how many applications you are deploying, what are the sorts of applications, and what are the requirements.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Confluent Cloud offers strong Apache Kafka support, praised for expertise and timely solutions, though some users seek additional resources.
Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks' support is generally praised for responsiveness, though some note delays, with resources often sufficient for independent problem-solving.
I would rate them eight if 10 was the best and one was the worst.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud offers scalable, efficient data handling, though some reliability concerns exist during scaling operations.
Sentiment score
7.5
Databricks is praised for its adaptability, scalability, automation features, and performance across industries but needs improved autoscaling control.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
1.0
Users praise Confluent Cloud's Apache Kafka for stability and monitoring but cite unresponsiveness during traffic spikes, suggesting improvements.
Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is highly rated for stability and performance, with occasional minor issues often due to user or external factors.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud needs better integrations, improved features, and more efficient tools to address usability and cost issues.
Databricks should improve visualization, integration, user experience, and scalability, addressing concerns about pricing, error messages, and onboarding.
Observability and monitoring are areas that could be enhanced.
We could use their job clusters, however, that increases costs, which is challenging for us as a startup.
This feature, if made publicly available, may act as a game-changer, considering many global organizations use SAP data for their ERP requirements.
If I could right-click to copy absolute paths or to read files directly into a data frame, it would standardize and simplify the process.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find Confluent Cloud's mid-range pricing flexible yet complex, with costs escalating for premium connectors and high data volumes.
Databricks offers flexible, often expensive pricing, mitigated by cloud deployment and tiered licensing, with varied user cost experiences.
 

Valuable Features

Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud provides scalable, cost-effective real-time data processing with robust integration, multi-cloud support, and serverless architecture.
Databricks offers an intuitive interface for data processing, integrating SQL, Python, and features like Delta Lake and MLflow.
These features are important due to scalability and resiliency.
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Kafka on Confluent C...
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (8th), Data Science Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is 0.0%. The mindshare of Databricks is 13.5%, up from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Ritik Varshney - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced data streaming with reliable features and good analytics
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud provides an enhanced level of reliability and resources compared to Apache Kafka alone. It offers more features which are beneficial for our clients, including cluster linking, schema registry, error handling, and dead-letter queues. It significantly improves customer and publisher satisfaction, especially with topic integration and data streaming.
ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
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 s...
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
I think what I would improve about the solution is the cost, mostly. From my standpoint, it's the cost. From an engineering perspective, it works really well. There's always room for improvement. O...
What is your primary use case for Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
We find that the best features include using the CDC functionality with the connector to take the data from our SQL database and publish it to many consumers. Any changes enable us to easily publis...
Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.