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Apache Kafka vs IBM Event 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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (7th)
IBM Event Streams
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Apache Kafka and IBM Event Streams aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Apache Kafka is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
IBM Event Streams, on the other hand, focuses on Message Queue (MQ) Software, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.6%
Apache Flink14.6%
Databricks13.1%
Other68.7%
Streaming Analytics
Message Queue (MQ) Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Event Streams1.0%
IBM MQ25.9%
ActiveMQ25.4%
Other47.7%
Message Queue (MQ) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Data streaming transforms real-time data movement with impressive scalability
I worked with Apache Kafka for customers in the financial industry and OTT platforms. They use Kafka particularly for data streaming. Companies offering movie and entertainment as a service, similar to Netflix, use Kafka Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming. It allows the use of data in…
Ismail El-Dahshan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good support and good routing scenarios
The triggering and the events that they have triggered as well as the route of the message according to the events are very useful. The triggering scenarios and routing scenarios are all good. It's a very useful solution for financial institutions. The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The stability has been good. I've found the product to be scalable. Technical support is responsive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It eases our current data flow and framework."
"Scalability is very good."
"The publisher-subscriber pattern and low latency are also essential features that greatly piqued my interest."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"The most important feature for me is the guaranteed delivery of messages from producers to consumers."
"Ease of use."
"For example, when you want to send a message to inform all your clients about a new feature, you can publish that message to a single topic in Apache Kafka. This allows all clients subscribed to that topic to receive the message. On the other hand, if you need to send billing information to a specific customer, you can publish that message on a topic dedicated to that customer. This message can then be sent as an SMS to the customer, allowing them to view it on their mobile device."
"The use of Kafka's logging mechanism has been extremely beneficial for us, as it allows us to sequence messages, track pointers, and manage memory without having to create multiple copies."
"The stability has been good."
"I'm an administrator, and what I like most is the interface, the security, and the storage."
"The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality."
 

Cons

"Kafka requires non-trivial expertise with DevOps to deploy in production at scale. The organization needs to understand ZooKeeper and Kafka and should consider using additional tools, such as MirrorMaker, so that the organization can survive an availability zone or a region going down."
"The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better."
"Apache Kafka could improve data loss and compatibility with Spark."
"Prioritization of messages in Apache Kafka could improve."
"They need to have a proper portal to do everything because, at this moment, Kafka is lagging in this regard."
"More adapters for connecting to different systems need to be available."
"For the original Kafka, there is room for improvement in terms of latency spikes and resource consumption. It consumes a lot of memory."
"The product is good, but it needs implementation and on-going support. The whole cloud engagement model has made the adoption of Kafka better due to PaaS (Amazon Kinesis, a fully managed service by AWS)."
"The product's interface needs improvement."
"In the next release, I would like to see the GUI allow you to configure the security section."
"It would be helpful if they could help us explain why they, as in, the customers, should use the product and the overall benefits."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Apache Kafka's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing fees for Apache Kafka."
"The cost can vary depending on the provider and the specific flavor or version you use. I'm not very knowledgeable about the pricing details."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution and is free to use."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"It's a bit cheaper compared to other Q applications."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The platform is averagely priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
Retailer
14%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise47
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 do you like most about Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source solution that can be used for messaging or event processing.
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 do you like most about IBM Event Streams?
The system efficiently processes and calculates the data flow within the cluster using DLP functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Event Streams?
The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Event Streams?
The product's interface needs improvement. Additionally, there could be a management console to create and manage clusters.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
American Airlines, UBank, Bitly, Eurobits, Active International, Bison, Contextor, Constance Hotels, Resorts & Golf, Creval, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, FaceMe, FacePhi, Fitzsoft, Fuga Technologies, Guardio, Honeywell, Japanese airline, Jenzabar, KONE
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. IBM Event Streams and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.