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Apache Kafka vs Spring Cloud Data Flow 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
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spring Cloud Data Flow
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.7%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spring Cloud Data Flow is 4.6%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.7%
Spring Cloud Data Flow4.6%
Other91.7%
Streaming Analytics
 

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…
Kaleeswaran Karuppusamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps retrieve data and with data processing but is not so easy to use
There are no stability issues in the tool. Compared to Apache Sling, Spring Cloud Data Flow is not easy to use. People prefer Apache Sling when dealing with their use cases. I don't know whether Spring Cloud Data Flow will be demanded a lot in the market because there are a lot of other options available, especially open-source tools like Apache Sling, which is getting a lot of attention from people. A lot of people have started using Apache Sling, so I don't know how much more visible Spring Cloud Data Flow will be in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its availability is brilliant."
"The most valuable features of the solution revolve around areas like the latency part, where the tool offers very little latency and the sequencing part."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"We appreciate the ability to persistently and quickly write data, as well as the flexibility to customize it for multiple customers. Additionally, we like the ability to retain data within Apache Kafka and use features, such as time travel to access past customer data. The connection with other systems, such as Apache Kafka and IBM DB2."
"The main advantage is increased reliability, particularly with regard to data and the speed with which messages are published to the other side."
"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."
"Deployment is speedy."
"It is a useful way to maintain messages and to manage offset from our consumers."
"The most valuable features of Spring Cloud Data Flow are the simple programming model, integration, dependency Injection, and ability to do any injection. Additionally, auto-configuration is another important feature because we don't have to configure the database and or set up the boilerplate in the database in every project. The composability is good, we can create small workloads and compose them in any way we like."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it allows us to use different batch data sources, retrieve the data, and then do the data processing, after which we can convert and store it in the target."
"The best thing I like about Spring Cloud Data Flow is its plug-and-play model."
"There are a lot of options in Spring Cloud. It's flexible in terms of how we can use it. It's a full infrastructure."
"The ease of deployment on Kubernetes, the seamless integration for orchestration of various pipelines, and the visual dashboard that simplifies operations even for non-specialists such as quality analysts."
"The dashboards in Spring Cloud Dataflow are quite valuable."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is real-time streaming."
 

Cons

"The third party is not very stable and sometimes you have problems with this component. There are some developments in newer versions and we're about to try them out, but I'm not sure if it closes the gap."
"The repository isn't working very well. It's not user friendly."
"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's initial setup process was complex."
"Something that could be improved is having an interface to monitor the consuming rate."
"I would like to see an improvement in authentication management."
"Kafka 2.0 has been released for over a month, and I wanted to try out the new features. However, the configuration is a little bit complicated: Kafka Broker, Kafka Manager, ZooKeeper Servers, etc."
"Apache Kafka can improve by adding a feature out of the box which allows it to deliver only one message."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow is not an easy-to-use tool, so improvements are required."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow could improve the user interface. We can drag and drop in the application for the configuration and settings, and deploy it right from the UI, without having to run a CI/CD pipeline. However, that does not work with Kubernetes, it only works when we are working with jars as the Spring Cloud Data Flow applications."
"There were instances of deployment pipelines getting stuck, and the dashboard not always accurately showing the application status, requiring manual intervention such as rerunning applications or refreshing the dashboard."
"The solution's community support could be improved."
"The configurations could be better. Some configurations are a little bit time-consuming in terms of trying to understand using the Spring Cloud documentation."
"On the tool's online discussion forums, you may get stuck with an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Some of the features, like the monitoring tools, are not very mature and are still evolving."
"I would improve the dashboard features as they are not very user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"The price for the enterprise version is quite high. For on-premise, there is an annual fee, which starts at 60,000 euros, but it is usually higher than 100,000 euros. The cost for a project including the subscription is usually between 100,000 to 200,000 euros. The cost also depends on the level of support. There are two different levels of support."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"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."
"Apache Kafka is open-source and can be used free of charge."
"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"This is an open-source solution and is free to use."
"The solution provides value for money, and we are currently using its community edition."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"If you want support from Spring Cloud Data Flow there is a fee. The Spring Framework is open-source and this is a free solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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 needs improvement with Spring Cloud Data Flow?
There were instances of deployment pipelines getting stuck, and the dashboard not always accurately showing the application status, requiring manual intervention such as rerunning applications or r...
What is your primary use case for Spring Cloud Data Flow?
We had a project for content management, which involved multiple applications each handling content ingestion, transformation, enrichment, and storage for different customers independently. We want...
What advice do you have for others considering Spring Cloud Data Flow?
I would definitely recommend Spring Cloud Data Flow. It requires minimal additional effort or time to understand how it works, and even non-specialists can use it effectively with its friendly docu...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.