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Apache Kafka vs Starburst Galaxy 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
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
13th
Average Rating
9.8
Reviews Sentiment
1.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.8%
Starburst Galaxy1.5%
Other94.7%
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.
reviewer2750097 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Business Intelligence at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Unified data access improves analytics and simplifies complex processes
I would like to see better alerting integrations for failures and errors in scheduled tasks and maintenance jobs. I also want support for more connectors such as Kinesis and Firehose, support for more file types such as Avro and JSON, and object storage message queue integration for object storage integrations. A single view of query execution and optimization details, rather than needing to toggle between the Galaxy and Trino UI, would be helpful. Additionally, enhanced control over account and environment variables that would be available in the Enterprise edition would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is very nice. We currently manage 50 million events daily."
"As a software developer, I have found Apache Kafka's support to be the most valuable...The solution is easy to integrate with any of our systems."
"Apache Kafka is particularly valuable for stream data processing, handling transactions, managing high levels of transactions, and orchestrating stream mode data."
"I appreciate that Apache Kafka is fast and secure thanks to implementing it with AWS, allowing me to secure it on a high level."
"It is the performance that is really meaningful."
"It's very easy to keep to install and it's pretty stable."
"Scalability is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the support for a high volume of data."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
"The most fundamental feature is the query engine, which is much faster than any of the competitors; Starburst is able to finish most queries within 10 seconds, which is especially important for many non-technical employees."
 

Cons

"The management tool could be improved."
"The solution's initial setup process was complex."
"Kafka does not provide control over the message queue, so we do not know whether we are experiencing lost or duplicate messages."
"The support on Apache Kafka could be improved."
"The management overhead is more compared to the messaging system. There are challenges here and there. Like for long usage, it requires restarts and nodes from time to time."
"Kafka is a nightmare to administer."
"The user interface is one weakness. Sometimes, our data isn't as accessible as we'd like. It takes a lot of work to retrieve the data and the index."
"The solution should be easier to manage. It needs to improve its visualization feature in the next release."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."
"Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"It is approximately $600,000 USD."
"Kafka is open-source and it is cheaper than any other product."
"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."
"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."
"It's quite affordable considering the value it provides."
"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."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace. On the AWS side this ...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
I use the solution for processing large simulation datasets into aggregated datasets that can either be used for real-time data analysis or stored for later analysis.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.