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Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud vs IBM Streams 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 Kafka on Confluent C...
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Streams
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
22nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Streams is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud0.1%
IBM Streams1.1%
Other98.8%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO LUIS VELLOSO DA SILVA - PeerSpot reviewer
Has enabled asynchronous communication and real-time data processing with strong performance
The valuable features with Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud are the messaging and the asynchronous messages; it's the basic, not advanced usage. It's only to create clusters to receive and send messages. The point is the asynchronous messages and the scalability; it is important for us. To guarantee the compliance of the architecture and the patterns for the company, to provide scalability, and to guarantee the security to send the messages. The Kafka Streams API helps with real-time data transformations and aggregations. It's very fast and helps us to create the project, guarantee the message delivery, and the performance. It's a good experience with very impressive processing and a very impressive project and product.
Ahmed_Emad - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution for data pipelines but has connector limitations
We have used Kafka for seven years. IBM streams gives you many OOTB features that can boost the time-to-market, especially when it comes to reporting and monitoring for example. Confluent is recognized as one of the leaders in this space and the main reason for this is related to the complete vision of the platform also the large number of connectors. This gives the edge and competitive advatnage.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
21%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

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?
If it were easier to configure clusters and had more straightforward configuration, high-level API abstraction in the APIs could improve it. The clustering is a little hard for juniors and clients....
What is your primary use case for Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud?
We need to send a lot of asynchronous messages in this project, and we use the middleware and Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud to guarantee asynchronous messaging between the services. We use Apache...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Streams?
The solution’s licenses pricing is different from one region to another region. I rate the solution’s pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Streams?
the limited number of connectors. This shall be overcome with work-arounds or eventually buying additional connectors to complete the solution.
What is your primary use case for IBM Streams?
We use the solution for data pipeline by modernizing the traditional ETL jobs done through advanced streaming. Another use case is building the g2g streaming platform, which facilitates data exchan...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM InfoSphere Streams
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Globo TV, All England Lawn Tennis Club, CenterPoint Energy, Consolidated Communications Holdings, Darwin Ecosystem, Emory University Hospital, ICICI Securities, Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT), Living Roads, Mobileum, Optibus, Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP), University of Alberta, University of Montana, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Wimbledon 2015
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud vs. IBM Streams and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.