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Apache Kafka vs Upsolver 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
Upsolver
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (36th)
 

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 Upsolver is 1.1%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Kafka4.0%
Upsolver1.1%
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.
reviewer2784462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Streaming pipelines have become simpler and onboarding new data sources is now much faster
One of the best features Upsolver offers is the automatic schema evolution. Another good feature is SQL-based streaming transformations. Complex streaming transformations such as cleansing, deduplication, and enrichment were implemented using SQL and drastically reduced the need for custom Spark code. My experience with the SQL-based streaming transformations in Upsolver is that it had a significant positive impact on the overall data engineering workflow. By replacing custom Spark streaming jobs with declarative SQL logic, I simplified development, review, and deployment processes. Data transformations such as parsing, filtering, enrichment, and deduplication could be implemented and modified quickly without rebuilding or redeploying complex code-based pipelines. Upsolver has impacted my organization positively because it brings many benefits. The first one is faster onboarding of new data sources. Another one is more reliable streaming pipelines. Another one is near-real-time data availability, which is very important for us. It also reduced operational effort for data engineering teams. A specific outcome that highlights these benefits is that the time to onboard new sources is reduced from weeks to days. Custom Spark code reduction reached 50 to 40 percent. Pipeline failures are reduced by 70 to 80 percent. Data latency is improved from hours to minutes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Deployment is speedy."
"One of the best features which I have worked with is replay."
"Apache Kafka is very fast and stable."
"Ease of use."
"Performance-wise, Kafka is better than any of the other products."
"It is a stable solution...A lot of my experience indicates that Apache Kafka is scalable."
"Robust and delivers messages quickly."
"The most prominent feature of Upsolver is its function as an ETL tool, allowing data to be moved across platforms and different data technologies."
"A specific outcome that highlights these benefits is that the time to onboard new sources is reduced from weeks to days, custom Spark code reduction reached 50 to 40 percent, pipeline failures are reduced by 70 to 80 percent, and data latency is improved from hours to minutes."
"It was easy to use and set up, with a nearly no-code interface that relied mostly on drag-and-drop functionality."
"I have saved 50 to 60% on maintaining pipelines since using Upsolver."
"Customer service is excellent, and I would rate it between eight point five to nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"Kafka can allow for duplicates, which isn't as helpful in some of our scenarios."
"Apache Kafka can improve by providing a UI for monitoring."
"Too much dependency on the zookeeper and leader selection is still the bottleneck for Kafka implementation."
"One improvement is in regards to the OS memory management."
"Kafka is complex and there is a little bit of a learning curve."
"Kafka is complex and there is a little bit of a learning curve."
"Maintaining and configuring Apache Kafka can be challenging, especially when you want to fine-tune its behavior."
"The solution could always add a few more features to enhance its usage."
"There is room for improvement in query tuning."
"On the stability side, I would rate it seven out of ten. Using multiple cloud providers and data engineering technologies creates complexity, and managing different plugins is not always easy, but they are working on it."
"I would say Upsolver's scalability is eight out of 10 because of pricing."
"I think that Upsolver can be improved in orchestration because it is not a full orchestration tool."
"Upsolver excels in ETL and data aggregation, while ThoughtSpot is strong in natural language processing for querying datasets. Combining these tools can be very effective: Upsolver handles aggregation and ETL, and ThoughtSpot allows for natural language queries. There’s potential for highlighting these integrations in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"It is open source software."
"Apache Kafka is free."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"The price of Apache Kafka is good."
"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."
"Kafka is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution."
"Upsolver is affordable at approximately $225 per terabyte per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise51
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Upsolver?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was a very good experience, but it is not a direct experience because it was not my responsibility. It was in charge of the customer. However, ...
What needs improvement with Upsolver?
I think that Upsolver can be improved in orchestration because it is not a full orchestration tool. I believe it could be better in this regard. The cost needs attention at a very large scale. I th...
What is your primary use case for Upsolver?
My main use case for Upsolver is during an IT consulting project for a large enterprise running a cloud-native data platform on AWS. I used Upsolver to ingest and process high-volume stream data fr...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uber, Netflix, Activision, Spotify, Slack, Pinterest
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Kafka vs. Upsolver and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.