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Apache Kafka vs Informatica Data Engineering Streaming [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 11, 2025

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (7th)
Informatica Data Engineerin...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
DK
BI Practice Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Helps with real-time data processing and improves decision-making overall
It improves decision-making overall for the company. Informatica is usually the tool for setting up the data, streaming the data into your data warehouse from your source, transforming the data, and preparing and modeling it into some desired format. It improves the performance. You need to know how to use it and how to implement it, but it improves performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the features of Apache Kafka are valuable, I cannot single out one feature."
"The most valuable feature is the messaging function and reliability."
"Kafka can process messages in real-time, making it useful for applications that require near-instantaneous processing."
"I appreciate that Apache Kafka is fast and secure thanks to implementing it with AWS, allowing me to secure it on a high level."
"The most important feature for me is the guaranteed delivery of messages from producers to consumers."
"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."
"Apache Kafka offers unique data streaming."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is its versatility. It can solve many use cases or can be a part of many use cases. Its fundamental value of it is in the real-time processing capability."
"It improves the performance."
 

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."
"If the graphical user interface was easier for the Kafka administration it would be much better. Right now, you need to use the program with the command-line interface. If the graphical user interface was easier, it could be a better product."
"As an open-source project, Kafka is still fairly young and has not yet built out the stability and features that other open-source projects have acquired over the many years. If done correctly, Kafka can also take over the stream-processing space that technologies such as Apache Storm cover."
"More Windows support, I believe, is one area where it can improve."
"Maintaining and configuring Apache Kafka can be challenging, especially when you want to fine-tune its behavior."
"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 solution can improve by having automation for developers. We have done many manual calculations and it has been difficult but if it was automated it would be much better."
"The interface of Apache Kafka could be significantly better."
"Skill requirement is required. There is a learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"The solution is open source; it's free to use."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"When starting to look at a distributed message system, look for a cloud solution first. It is an easier entry point than an on-premises hardware solution."
"This is an open-source version."
"I was using the product's free version."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Insurance Company
5%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
Skill requirement is required. There is a learning curve.
What is your primary use case for Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
We implement business intelligence solutions, including data warehousing tools, data integration to load data into warehouses, and then creating reports.
What advice do you have for others considering Informatica Data Engineering Streaming?
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. Usually, Informatica is for big clients because of its pricing, and it also requires some skill sets. It requires investment into a proper da...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Big Data Streaming, Informatica Intelligent Streaming, Intelligent Streaming
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Jewelry TV
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: January 2026.
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