Azure Stream Analytics vs Spring Cloud Data Flow comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Streaming Analytics category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.1, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.8. Microsoft holds a 7.6% mindshare in SA, compared to Broadcom’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Azure Stream Analytics

Read 30 Azure Stream Analytics reviews

3,223 Views
2,933 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Spring Cloud Data Flow

Read 9 Spring Cloud Data Flow reviews

3,001 Views
1,410 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Azure Stream Analytics

Spring Cloud Data Flow

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Azure Stream Analytics and Spring Cloud Data Flow compete in the data stream management category. Azure Stream Analytics has a competitive edge due to its easy integration with other Azure services and real-time analytics capabilities.

Features: Azure Stream Analytics integrates seamlessly with Azure environments, offering real-time analytics and ease of use with a SQL-based approach. It supports IoT Hub and Blob Storage for comprehensive data handling. Spring Cloud Data Flow provides flexibility with plug-and-play features, supporting workflow automation and effective microservices orchestration.

Room for Improvement: Azure Stream Analytics could be improved by enhancing cross-cloud interoperability and pricing transparency. Users find challenges with real-time joins and integration outside Azure. Spring Cloud Data Flow would benefit from better documentation and user interface improvements, with its open-source aspect sometimes challenging due to limited community support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Stream Analytics offers strong technical support from Microsoft with timely assistance and extensive documentation, commonly used in public cloud environments. Spring Cloud Data Flow, typically deployed on-premises or private clouds, relies on community forums for support and is less directly backed compared to Azure's extensive services.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Stream Analytics is known for competitive cloud solution pricing with models such as pay-as-you-go, but faces criticism regarding pricing transparency and costs when scaling. Spring Cloud Data Flow offers a cost-efficient open-source model, with paid support required for enhanced services. Both deliver solid ROI, with Azure praised for quick setup and Spring Cloud Data Flow for value via its community edition.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Stream Analytics vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stream Analytics vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow

September 2025

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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

Azure Stream Analytics

Ranking in Streaming Analytics

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (21st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Azure Stream Analytics is 7.6%, down from 12.2% 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Stream Analytics	7.6%
Spring Cloud Data Flow	4.6%
Other	87.8%

Streaming Analytics

Featured Reviews

Chandra Mani

Technical architect at Tech Mahindra

Has supported real-time data validation and processing across multiple use cases but can improve consumer-side integration and streamlined customization

I widely use AKS, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure App Service, and there are APM Gateway kinds of things. I also utilize API Management and Front Door to expose any multi-region application I have, including Web Application Firewalls, and many more—around 20 to 60 services. I use Key Vault for managing secrets and monitoring Azure App Insights for tracing and monitoring. Additionally, I employ AI search for indexer purposes, processing chatbot data or any GenAI integration. I widely use OpenAI for GenAI, integrating various models with our platform. I extensively use hybrid cloud solutions to connect on-premise cloud or cloud to another network, employing public private endpoints or private link service endpoints. Azure DevOps is also on my list, and I leverage many security concepts for end-to-end design. I consider how end users access applications to data storage and secure the entire platform for authenticated users across various use cases, including B2C, B2B, or employee scenarios. I also widely design multi-tenant applications, utilizing Azure AD or Azure AD B2C for consumers. Azure Stream Analytics reads from any real-time stream; it's designed for processing millions of records every millisecond. They utilize Event Hubs for this purpose, as it allows for event processing. After receiving data from various sources, we validate and store it in a data store. Azure Stream Analytics can consume data from Event Hubs, applying basic validation rules to determine the validity of each record before processing.

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Alokik Gupta

Software Engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Effective microservice and task management but needs more dashboard features

The dashboards in Spring Cloud Dataflow are quite valuable. By injecting the dependency of Spring Cloud Dataflow into our Spring Boot application and annotating it with 'enable task annotation', we can manage tasks effectively. Additionally, the platform allows us to create pipelines and use microservices like a logical AND gate, giving us greater control over our microservices.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Azure Stream Analytics reads from any real-time stream; it's designed for processing millions of records every millisecond."

"Provides deep integration with other Azure resources."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to create a query using SQ."

"The most valuable features of Azure Stream Analytics are the ease of provisioning and the interface is not terribly complex."

"The most valuable features are the IoT hub and the Blob storage."

"It's a product that can scale."

"I like all the connected ecosystems of Microsoft, it is really good with other BI tools that are easy to connect."

"Any time I needed assistance, they were helpful."

More Azure Stream Analytics pros

"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 product is very user-friendly."

"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 most valuable feature is real-time streaming."

"The dashboards in Spring Cloud Dataflow are quite valuable."

"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 best thing I like about Spring Cloud Data Flow is its plug-and-play model."

"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."

Cons

"There is a need for improvement in reprocessing or validation without custom code. Azure Stream Analytics currently allows some degree of code writing, which could be simplified with low-code or no-code platforms to enhance performance."

"Early in the process, we had some issues with stability."

"The collection and analysis of historical data could be better."

"There are too many products in the Azure landscape, which sometimes leads to overlap between them."

"One area that could use improvement is the handling of data validation. Currently, there is a review process, but sometimes the validation fails even before the job is executed. This results in wasted time as we have to rerun the job to identify the failure."

"There are too many products in the Azure landscape, which sometimes leads to overlap between them."

"The only challenge was that the streaming analytics area in Azure Stream Analytics could not meet our company's expectations, making it a component where improvements are required."

"Regarding technical support for Azure Stream Analytics, it's not good."

More Azure Stream Analytics cons

"Some of the features, like the monitoring tools, are not very mature and are still evolving."

"On the tool's online discussion forums, you may get stuck with an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."

"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 configurations could be better. Some configurations are a little bit time-consuming in terms of trying to understand using the Spring Cloud documentation."

"The solution's community support could be improved."

"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."

"Spring Cloud Data Flow is not an easy-to-use tool, so improvements are required."

"I would improve the dashboard features as they are not very user-friendly."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When scaling up, the pricing for Azure Stream Analytics can get relatively high. Considering its capabilities compared to other solutions, I would rate it a seven out of ten for cost. However, we've found ways to optimize costs using tools like Databricks for specific tasks."

"Azure Stream Analytics is a little bit expensive."

"I rate the price of Azure Stream Analytics a four out of five."

"There are different tiers based on retention policies. There are four tiers. The pricing varies based on steaming units and tiers. The standard pricing is $10/hour."

"The cost of this solution is less than competitors such as Amazon or Google Cloud."

"We pay approximately $500,000 a year. It's approximately $10,000 a year per license."

"The product's price is at par with the other solutions provided by the other cloud service providers in the market."

"The current price is substantial."

More Azure Stream Analytics pricing and cost advice

"The solution provides value for money, and we are currently using its community edition."

"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."

"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?

Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stream Analytics?

The solution does not need any license; it comes with your subscription.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stream Analytics?

With the deployment of Azure Stream Analytics, there are many challenges. I am working with a DevOps team that I'm part of as a counselor. I'm working with them because they are working in other pa...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon MSK vs Azure Stream Analytics

Compared 23% of the time

Databricks vs Azure Stream Analytics

Compared 20% of the time

Apache Flink vs Azure Stream Analytics

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon Kinesis vs Azure Stream Analytics

Compared 16% of the time

Aiven Platform vs Azure Stream Analytics

Compared 5% of the time

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Apache Flink vs Spring Cloud Data Flow

Compared 40% of the time

TIBCO BusinessWorks vs Spring Cloud Data Flow

Compared 9% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Spring Cloud Data Flow

Compared 6% of the time

Apache Spark Streaming vs Spring Cloud Data Flow

Compared 5% of the time

Google Cloud Dataflow vs Spring Cloud Data Flow

Compared 5% of the time

More Spring Cloud Data Flow Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stream Analytics

October 2025

Download Azure Stream Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

Spring Cloud Data Flow

September 2025

Download Spring Cloud Data Flow product report

Also Known As

ASA

No data available

Overview

Azure Stream Analytics is a robust real-time analytics service that has been designed for critical business workloads. Users are able to build an end-to-end serverless streaming pipeline in minutes. Utilizing SQL, users are able to go from zero to production with a few clicks, all easily extensible with unique code and automatic machine learning abilities for the most advanced scenarios.

Azure Stream Analytics has the ability to analyze and accurately process exorbitant volumes of high-speed streaming data from numerous sources at the same time. Patterns and scenarios are quickly identified and information is gathered from various input sources, such as social media feeds, applications, clickstreams, sensors, and devices. These patterns can then be implemented to trigger actions and launch workflows, such as feeding data to a reporting tool, storing data for later use, or creating alerts. Azure Stream Analytics is also offered on Azure IoT Edge runtime, so the data can be processed on IoT devices.

Top Benefits

User friendly: Azure Stream Analytics is very straightforward and easy to use. Out of the box and with a few clicks, users are able to connect to numerous sources and sinks, and easily develop an end-to-end pipeline. Stream Analytics can easily connect to Azure IoT Hub and Azure Event Hub for streaming ingestion, in addition to connecting with Azure Blob storage for historical data ingestion.
Flexible deployment: For low-latency analytics, Azure Stream Analytics can run on Azure Stack or IoT edge. For large-scale analytics, the solution can run in the cloud. Azure Stream Analytics uses the same query language and tools for both the cloud and the edge, facilitating an easier process for developers to design exceptional hybrid architectures for streaming processes.
Cost-effective: With Azure Stream Analytics, users only pay for the streaming units they consume; there are no upfront costs. Users can easily scale up or down as needed; there is no commitment or cluster provisioning.
Trustworthy: Azure Stream Analytics guarantees event processing to be 99.99% available with a minute level of granularity. Azure Stream Analytics has embedded recovery capabilities and checkpoints to keep things running smoothly at all times. Events are never lost with Azure Stream Analytics at-least once delivery of events and exactly one event processing.

Reviews from Real Users

“Azure Stream Analytics is something that you can use to test out streaming scenarios very quickly in the general sense and it is useful for IoT scenarios. If I was to do a project with IoT and I needed a streaming solution, Azure Stream Analytics would be a top choice. The most valuable features of Azure Stream Analytics are the ease of provisioning and the interface is not terribly complex.” - Olubisi A., Team Lead at a tech services company.

“It's used primarily for data and mining - everything from the telemetry data side of things. It's great for streaming and makes everything easy to handle. The streaming from the IoT hub and the messaging are aspects I like a lot.” - Sudhendra U., Technical Architect at Infosys

Microsoft

Spring Cloud Data Flow is a toolkit for building data integration and real-time data processing pipelines.
Pipelines consist of Spring Boot apps, built using the Spring Cloud Stream or Spring Cloud Task microservice frameworks. This makes Spring Cloud Data Flow suitable for a range of data processing use cases, from import/export to event streaming and predictive analytics. Use Spring Cloud Data Flow to connect your Enterprise to the Internet of Anything—mobile devices, sensors, wearables, automobiles, and more.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation, Milliman, Honeywell Building Solutions, Arcoflex Automation Solutions, Real Madrid C.F., Aerocrine, Ziosk, Tacoma Public Schools, P97 Networks

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stream Analytics vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow

September 2025

Free Report: Azure Stream Analytics vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow

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