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Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud 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 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
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
17th
Average Rating
9.8
Reviews Sentiment
1.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (13th)
 

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 Starburst Galaxy is 1.2%, up from 1.2% 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.
Stephen-Howard - PeerSpot reviewer
Federated querying delivers integrated data at record speed and reduces processing time
The biggest win has been the ability to combine data from multiple sources and deliver it to the business at record speed. This capability has allowed us to query directly through Starburst Galaxy, enabling teams to access integrated data that would otherwise be hard to pull together. This has reduced both our ETL processing time and storage costs. We are answering questions that would have been hard, if not impossible, to answer previously because the data came from disparate, disconnected sources.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the best features with Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud are streaming and event capabilities, which are important due to scalability and resiliency."
"Confluent Cloud handles data volume pretty well."
"The product's installation phase is pretty straightforward for us since we know how to use it."
"In case of huge transactions on the web or mobile apps, it helps you capture real-time data and analyze it."
"Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is more reliable and frequent to use compared to Apache Kafka."
"Kafka provides handy properties that allow us to directly configure the data, whether to keep it or discard it after use."
"The state-saving feature is very much appreciated. It allows me to rewind a certain process if I see an error and then reprocess it."
"Overall, I think it's a good experience. Apache Kafka can be quite complex and difficult to maintain on your own, so using Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud makes it much easier to use it without worrying about setup and maintenance."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"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 is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
 

Cons

"The administration port could be more extensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"Some areas for improvement in Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud include issues faced during migration with Kubernetes pods."
"In terms of improvements, observability and monitoring are areas that could be enhanced. They are lacking in terms of observability and monitoring compared to other products."
"Maybe in terms of Apache Kafka's integration with other Microsoft tools, our company faced some challenges."
"There could be an in-built feature for data analysis."
"There's one thing that's a common use case, but I don't know why it's not covered in Kafka. When a message comes in, and another message with the same key arrives, the first version should be deleted automatically."
"There are some premium connectors, for example, available in Confluent, which you cannot access in the marketplace, so there are some limitations."
"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."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is fair, but Confluent requires a little bit more thinking because the price can go up really quickly when it comes to premium connectors."
"I consider that the product's price falls under the middle range category."
"Regarding pricing, Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud is not a cheap tool. The right use case would justify the cost. It might make sense if you have a high volume of data that you can leverage to generate value for the business. But if you don't have those requirements, there are likely cheaper solutions you could use instead."
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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
32%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Government
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
You pay for cluster uptime. It is important to be aggressive about autoscaling, as a single worker will get you a long way. I recommend never connecting a BI tool to your Galaxy cluster. Instead, w...
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
As a hosted option, I wish I had more control over the cluster configuration, specifically regarding some of the more advanced options. Trino is extremely flexible and powerful, but some of this fu...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
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. It is surprisingly useful to query SQL Server, a Google Sh...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka on Confluent Cloud vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.