No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Apache Kafka vs Redpanda comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Redpanda
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
14th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 4.0%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redpanda is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
Redpanda1.9%
Other94.1%
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.
ArpitShah - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Analyst at CLSA
Event streaming has simplified video data cleanup and now powers real-time analytics
One area for improvement is providing more examples. For instance, Redpanda could be more useful as a sink where you get the data and can directly push to S3. While this is possible through the API, there are better and faster ways to do it. You can make a million API calls and accomplish the task in one and a half hours, but the same thing can be done in ten minutes through other methods. These faster approaches are not documented in obvious places. You have to find information scattered across various blogs. Redpanda should collect all the good blogs and best practices and put them in their documentation. This is more about knowledge management and making it easy for users to understand the product for complex use cases. For simple use cases, it is straightforward. We all use the basic pipe functionality. However, providing more examples would be useful. For example, integration with AWS and the AWS ecosystem would be cool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We get amazing throughput. We don't get any delay."
"This is the best tool I have ever used for asynchronous, event-based solutions."
"When comparing it with other messaging and integration platforms, this is one of the best rated."
"This is a system for email and other small devices, and there has been a relay of transactions continuously over the last two years it has been in production."
"The stream processing is a very valuable aspect of the solution for us."
"When we're working with big data, we need a throughput computing panel, which is something that Kafka provides, and something we find extremely valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Kafka is the Kafka Streams client."
"Excellent speeds for publishing messages faster."
"Aside from its lightweight design, Redpanda is essentially a clone of Kafka with all the good features of Kafka, with the only difference being that Kafka needs too many resources while Redpanda is a very good, lightweight, and very fast database."
"The performance is superb, and the value we are getting for the money we pay is great."
"I tested it with ten-plus nodes, and it's highly scalable."
"What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications."
"What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++, which is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications."
"I would recommend Redpanda to others because it's easy to set up, consumes less resources, and is stable compared to other tools."
"Redpanda was simple and fast, so we went with Redpanda and it just works."
"If our infrastructure goes down for a week, we will not lose data."
 

Cons

"Due to the fact that the solution is open source, it has a zookeeper dependency."
"In the next release, I would like for there to be some authorization and HTL security."
"The speed isn't as fast as RabbitMQ, even though the solution touts itself as very quick."
"The UI used to access Kafka topics can be further improved."
"One improvement is in regards to the OS memory management."
"Something that could be improved is having an interface to monitor the consuming rate."
"Apache Kafka can improve by making the documentation more user-friendly. It would be beneficial if we could explain to customers in more detail how the solution operates but the documentation get highly technical quickly. For example, if they had a simple page where we can show the customers how it works without the need for the customer to have a computer science background."
"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."
"One area for improvement is providing more examples."
"The command-line tools need to be improved. To quickly check the status of the topics and all."
"The command-line tools need to be improved. To quickly check the status of the topics and all."
"When it comes to self-hosting, their documentation could be improved."
"When it comes to self-hosting, their documentation could be improved."
"The version control mechanism must be improved."
"In Redpanda, the areas that have room for improvement are in the clustering part."
"The version control mechanism must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"This is an open-source version."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"Apache Kafka has an open-source pricing."
"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."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"Redpanda is cheaper than its competitors."
"It's free. Everybody can use it, only support is paid."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redpanda?
In terms of pricing, Redpanda is free. We do not have to pay anything. It is not open source, but it is free.
What needs improvement with Redpanda?
In Redpanda, the areas that have room for improvement are in the clustering part. Setting up clustering initially is very easy. However, if you are removing a node and attaching another node, signi...
What is your primary use case for Redpanda?
Redpanda serves two primary purposes for our organization. First, we use it as a drop-in replacement for Kafka. Second, we utilize it for streaming analytics. We do not use Redpanda for IoT data st...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Redpanda and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.