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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
89
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
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (40th)
 

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 Upsolver is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Kafka3.7%
Upsolver0.4%
Other95.9%
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

"The most valuable feature of Apache Kafka is the clustering which is very easy to scale and we have multiple servers all over our platforms. It has been useful for stability and performance."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"It seemed pretty stable and didn't have any issues at all."
"The most valuable feature is the support for a high volume of data."
"The processing power of Apache Kafka is good when you have requirements for high throughput and a large number of consumers."
"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."
"Kafka allows you to handle huge amounts of data and classify it into different categories. If you have huge amounts of data, Kafka is a very good solution for data classification."
"The solution is very scalable. We started with a cluster of three and then scaled it to seven."
"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

"The solution can improve by having automation for developers. We have done many manual calculations and it has been difficult but if it was automated it would be much better."
"One complexity that I faced with the tool stems from the fact that since it is not kind of a stand-alone application, it won't integrate with native cloud, like AWS or Azure."
"Pulsar gives more scalability to an even grouping, but Apache Kafka is used more if you want to send something in a time series-based. If this does not matter to you then Pulsar could be more customizable. Apache Kafka is nothing but a streaming system with local storage."
"Managing Apache Kafka can be a challenge, but there are solutions. I used the newest release, as it seems they have removed Zookeeper, which should make it easier. Confluent provides a fully managed Kafka platform, in which the cluster does not need to be managed."
"Data pulling and restart ability need improving."
"Kafka has some limitations in terms of queue management."
"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."
"The solution should be easier to manage. It needs to improve its visualization feature in the next release."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kafka is more reasonably priced than IBM MQ."
"Licensing issues are not applicable. Apache licensing makes it simple with almost zero cost for the software itself."
"Apache Kafka has an open-source pricing."
"I would not subscribe to the Confluent platform, but rather stay on the free open source version. The extra cost wasn't justified."
"The solution is free, it is open-source."
"We are using the free version of Apache Kafka."
"Apache Kafka is an open-source solution and there are no fees, but there are fees associated with confluence, which are based on subscription."
"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
25%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise47
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: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.