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Apache Kafka vs SAS Event Stream Processing 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
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAS Event Stream Processing
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
1
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 SAS Event Stream Processing is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
SAS Event Stream Processing1.1%
Other94.9%
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.
Roi Jason Buela - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Technical Consultant at Thakral One
A solution with useful windowing features and great for operations and marketing
The persistence could be better. Although ESP is designed for in-memory processing, it would be better if the solution is enhanced or improved on the persistence of the data that is kept in the memory. For example, if one server goes down and the information is stored in the memory, it is lost. Therefore, the persistence needs to be improved so that if there are more cases where the server is down, the information and data can still be intact.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution scales horizontally and scales better than its competitors."
"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."
"All the features of Apache Kafka are valuable, I cannot single out one feature."
"Resiliency is great and also the fact that it handles different data formats."
"The solution has allowed us to take the use cases provided by another communication tool and resolve those issues."
"It has become dead simple to connect different application and services, saving a lot of development hours."
"Excellent speeds for publishing messages faster."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"The solution is beneficial on an enterprise level."
"The solution is beneficial on an enterprise level."
 

Cons

"Kafka has some limitations in terms of queue management."
"They need to have a proper portal to do everything because, at this moment, Kafka is lagging in this regard."
"Config management can be better."
"We used to have problems in Kafka every three weeks and our dev ops team fixed a few issues."
"If you are using the same group ID for multiple topics, it may shut down the application."
"I suggest using cloud services because the solution is expensive if you are using it on-premises."
"They need to have a proper portal to do everything because, at this moment, Kafka is lagging in this regard."
"Scalability may cause issues in the product if my nodes are full with multiple sources and delivery is slowing down."
"The persistence could be better."
"The persistence could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is open source software."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"This is an open-source version."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise50
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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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Honda, HSBC, Lufthansa, Nestle, 89Degrees.
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Microsoft, Apache and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: May 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.