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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
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Upsolver
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Kafka is 3.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Upsolver is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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…
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for data to be moved across platforms and different data technologies
The most prominent feature of Upsolver is its function as an ETL tool, allowing data to be moved across platforms and different data technologies. Upsolver does this in a quick time, unlike traditional processes which are time-consuming. Additionally, it offers scalability for large volumes of data, with performance and ease of cloud-native integration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Robust and delivers messages quickly."
"Kafka is an open-source tool that's easy to use in our country, and the command line interface is powerful."
"The most important feature for me is the guaranteed delivery of messages from producers to consumers."
"Good horizontal scaling and design."
"The most valuable feature is the documentation, which is good and clear."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"The convenience in setting up after major problems like data center blackouts is a notable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Kafka is the Kafka Streams client."
"It was easy to use and set up, with a nearly no-code interface that relied mostly on drag-and-drop functionality."
"The most prominent feature of Upsolver is its function as an ETL tool, allowing data to be moved across platforms and different data technologies."
"Customer service is excellent, and I would rate it between eight point five to nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"Config management can be better. We are always trying to find the best configs, which is a challenge."
"As an open-source project, Kafka is still fairly young and has not yet built out the stability and features that other open-source projects have acquired over the many years. If done correctly, Kafka can also take over the stream-processing space that technologies such as Apache Storm cover."
"I suggest using cloud services because the solution is expensive if you are using it on-premises."
"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."
"An area for improvement would be growth."
"The model where you create the integration or the integration scenario needs improvement."
"Apache Kafka can improve by providing a UI for monitoring. There are third-party tools that can do it, but it would be nice if it was already embedded within Apache Kafka."
"In the data sharing space, the performance of Apache Kafka could be improved. The performance angle is critical, and while it works in milliseconds, the goal is to move towards microseconds."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in query tuning."
"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

"Running a Kafka cluster can be expensive, especially if you need to scale it up to handle large amounts of data."
"The solution is open source."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"I was using the product's free version."
"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."
"Kafka is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"It's a premium product, so it is not price-effective for us."
"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
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 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 Upsolver?
Upsolver is affordable at approximately $225 per terabyte per year. Compared to what I know from others, it's cheaper than many other products.
What needs improvement with Upsolver?
There is room for improvement in query tuning. Upsolver could do a more in-depth analysis in employing machine power, such as CPU and memory, to enhance query performance. Furthermore, allocating C...
What is your primary use case for Upsolver?
I am working as a consultant and currently have my own consultancy services. I provide services to companies that are data-heavy and looking for data engineering solutions for their business needs....
 

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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.