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Apache Kafka vs Apache Pulsar 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
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Pulsar
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 4.2%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 2.8%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.2%
Apache Pulsar2.8%
Other93.0%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Bruno da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Timestamp, SA
Have worked closely with the team to deploy streaming and transaction pipelines in a flexible cloud environment
The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better. I started working with Apache Kafka from its early days, and I have seen many improvements. The back office functionality could be enhanced. Scaling up continues to be a challenge, though it is much easier now than it was in the beginning.
it_user1087029 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Vlaanderen connect.
The solution can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code
The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform. It operates differently than a traditional streaming platform with storage and computing handled separately. It scales easier and better than Kafka which can be stubborn. You can even make it act like Kafka because it understands Kafka APIs. There are even companies that will sell you Kafka but underneath it is Apache Pulsar. The solution is very compatible because it can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kafka can process messages in real-time, making it useful for applications that require near-instantaneous processing."
"Apache Kafka has good integration capabilities and has plenty of adapters in its ecosystem if you want to build something. There are adapters for many platforms, such as Java, Azure, and Microsoft's ecosystem. Other solutions, such as Pulsar have fewer adapters available."
"With Kafka, events and streaming are persistent, and multiple subscribers can consume the data. This is an advantage of Kafka compared to simple queue-based solutions."
"Excellent speeds for publishing messages faster."
"This is a system for email and other small devices. There has been a relay of transactions continuously over the last two years it has been in production."
"Apache Kafka is actually a distributed commit log. That is different than most messaging and queuing systems before it."
"Kafka is an open-source tool that's easy to use in our country, and the command line interface is powerful."
"Apache Kafka is very fast and stable."
"The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform."
 

Cons

"The manageability should be improved. There are lots of things we need to manage and it should have a function that enables us to manage them all cohesively."
"Stability of the API and the technical support could be improved."
"Prioritization of messages in Apache Kafka could improve."
"In the data sharing space, the performance of Apache Kafka could be improved."
"would like to see real-time event-based consumption of messages rather than the traditional way through a loop. The traditional messaging system works by listing and looping with a small wait to check to see what the messages are. A push system is where you have something that is ready to receive a message and when the message comes in and hits the partition, it goes straight to the consumer versus the consumer having to pull. I believe this consumer approach is something they are working on and may come in an upcoming release. However, that is message consumption versus message listening."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"Kafka's interface could also use some work. Some of our products are in C, and we don't have any libraries to use with C. From an interface perspective, we had a library from the readies. And we are streaming some of the products we built to readies. That is one of the requirements. It would be good to have those libraries available in a future release for our C++ clients or public libraries, so we can include them in our product and build on that."
"Config management can be better. We are always trying to find the best configs, which is a challenge."
"Documentation is poor because much of it is in Chinese with no English translation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Kafka is an open-sourced solution. There are fees if you want the support, and I would recommend it for enterprises. There are annual subscriptions available."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"We use the free version."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Kafka?
Its pricing is reasonable. It's not always about cost, but about meeting specific needs.
What needs improvement with Apache Kafka?
The long-term data storage feature in Apache Kafka depends on the setting, but I believe the maximum duration is seven days.
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
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