Cloudera DataFlow vs Confluent comparison

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Cloudera Logo
1,988 views|1,068 comparisons
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10,449 views|8,119 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudera DataFlow and Confluent based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Streaming Analytics solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cloudera DataFlow vs. Confluent Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The initial setup was not so difficult""This solution is very scalable and robust.""DataFlow's performance is okay."

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"The monitoring module is impressive.""The most valuable feature that we are using is the data replication between the data centers allowing us to configure a disaster recovery or software. However, is it's not mandatory to use and because most of the features that we use are from Apache Kafka, such as end-to-end encryption. Internally, we can develop our own kind of product or service from Apache Kafka.""Kafka Connect framework is valuable for connecting to the various source systems where code doesn't need to be written.""A person with a good IT background and HTML will not have any trouble with Confluent.""Confluence's greatest asset is its user-friendly interface, coupled with its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with a vast range of other solutions.""The design of the product is extremely well built and it is highly configurable.""The most valuable feature of Confluent is the wide range of features provided. They're leading the market in this category.""It is also good for knowledge base management."

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Cons
"It's an outdated legacy product that doesn't meet the needs of modern data analysts and scientists.""It is not easy to use the R language. Though I don't know if it's possible, I believe it is possible, but it is not the best language for machine learning.""Although their workflow is pretty neat, it still requires a lot of transformation coding; especially when it comes to Python and other demanding programming languages."

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"The product should integrate tools for incorporating diagrams like Lucidchart. It also needs to improve its formatting features. We also faced issues while granting permissions.""It would help if the knowledge based documents in the support portal could be available for public use as well.""The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful.""They should remove Zookeeper because of security issues.""There is a limitation when it comes to seamlessly importing Microsoft documents into Confluent pages, which can be inconvenient for users who frequently work with Microsoft Office tools and need to transition their content to Confluent.""The pricing model should include the ability to pick features and be charged for them only.""There is no local support team in Saudi Arabia.""In Confluent, there could be a few more VPN options."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "DataFlow isn't expensive, but its value for money isn't great."
  • More Cloudera DataFlow Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Confluent is expensive, I would prefer, Apache Kafka over Confluent because of the high cost of maintenance."
  • "You have to pay additional for one or two features."
  • "The pricing model of Confluent could improve because if you have a classic use case where you're going to use all the features there is no plan to reduce the features. You should be able to pick and choose basic services at a reduced price. The pricing was high for our needs. We should not have to pay for features we do not use."
  • "On a scale from one to ten, where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate Confluent's pricing at five. I have not encountered any additional costs."
  • "Confluence's pricing is quite reasonable, with a cost of around $10 per user that decreases as the number of users increases. Additionally, it's worth noting that for teams of up to 10 users, the solution is completely free."
  • "Confluent has a yearly license, which is a bit high because it's on a per-user basis."
  • "It comes with a high cost."
  • "Confluent is highly priced."
  • More Confluent Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The initial setup was not so difficult
    Top Answer:It is not easy to use the R language. Though I don't know if it's possible, I believe it is possible, but it is not the best language for machine learning. This feature could be improved.
    Top Answer:Sometimes I need this workflow to make my modules, not for campaign preparation. It is solely focused on developing quality modules for direct telecommunication companies.
    Top Answer:Implementing Confluent's schema registry has significantly enhanced our organization's data quality assurance.
    Top Answer:Confluent has a higher price than MSK. However, it delivers better features for tech stack requirements. For instance, its superior integration capabilities have proven essential, particularly in… more »
    Top Answer:Confluent's price needs improvement.
    Ranking
    13th
    out of 38 in Streaming Analytics
    Views
    1,988
    Comparisons
    1,068
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    288
    Rating
    6.7
    3rd
    out of 38 in Streaming Analytics
    Views
    10,449
    Comparisons
    8,119
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    396
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    CDF, Hortonworks DataFlow, HDF
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cloudera DataFlow (CDF) is a comprehensive edge-to-cloud real-time streaming data platform that gathers, curates, and analyzes data to provide customers with useful insight for immediately actionable intelligence. It resolves issues with real-time stream processing, streaming analytics, data provenance, and data ingestion from IoT devices and other sources that are associated with data in motion. Cloudera DataFlow enables secure and controlled data intake, data transformation, and content routing because it is built entirely on open-source technologies. With regard to all of your strategic digital projects, Cloudera DataFlow enables you to provide a superior customer experience, increase operational effectiveness, and maintain a competitive edge.

    With Cloudera DataFlow, you can take the next step in modernizing your data streams by connecting your on-premises flow management, streams messaging, and stream processing and analytics capabilities to the public cloud.

    Cloudera DataFlow Advantage Features

    Cloudera DataFlow has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Edge and flow management: Edge agents and an edge management hub work together to provide the edge management capability. Edge agents can be managed, controlled, and watched over in order to gather information from edge hardware and push intelligence back to the edge. Thousands of edge devices can now be used to design, deploy, run, and monitor edge flow apps. Edge Flow Manager (EFM) is an agent management hub that enables the development, deployment, and monitoring of edge flows on thousands of MiNiFi agents using a graphical flow-based programming model.
    • Streams messaging: The CDF platform guarantees that all ingested data streams can be temporarily buffered so that other applications can use the data as needed. This makes it possible for a business to scale efficiently, as data streams from thousands of origination points start to grow to petabyte sizes. To achieve IoT-scale, streams messaging allows you to buffer large data streams using a publish-subscribe strategy.
    • Stream analytics and processing: The third tenet of the CDF platform is its capacity to analyze incoming data streams in real time and with minimal latency, providing actionable intelligence in the form of predictive and prescriptive insights. This stage is essential to completing the Data-in-Motion lifecycle for an enterprise because there is only a use in absorbing all real-time streams if something useful is done with them in the moment to benefit your company.
    • Shared Data Experience (SDX): The most crucial component that transforms CDF into a genuine platform is Cloudera Data Platform's SDX. It is a powerful data fabric that offers the broadest possible deployment flexibility and guarantees total security, governance, and control across infrastructures. You get a single experience for security (with Apache Ranger), governance (with Apache Atlas), and data lineage from edge to cloud because all the CDF components seamlessly connect with SDX.

    Cloudera DataFlow Advantage Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Cloudera DataFlow . Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Completely open source: Invest in your architecture with confidence, knowing that there will be no vendor lock-in.
    • More than 300 pre-built processors: This is the only product that provides edge-to-cloud connection this comprehensive as well as a no-code user experience
    • Integrated data provenance: The market's only platform that offers out-of-the-box, end-to-end data lineage tracking and provenance across MiNiFi, NiFi, Kafka, Flink, and more.
    • Multiple stream processing engines to choose from: Supports Spark structured streaming, Kafka Streams, and Apache Flink for real-time insights and predictive analytics.
    • Hundred of Kafka consumers: Cloudera has hundreds of satisfied customers who receive exceptional support for their complex Kafka implementations.
    • Use cases for edge IoT: IoT data from thousands of endpoints may be easily collected, processed, and managed from the edge to the cloud with a multi-cloud/hybrid cloud strategy.
    • Hybrid/multi-cloud approach: Choose a flexible deployment option for your streaming architecture that spans across edge, on-premises, and various cloud environments with ease thanks to the power of CDP.

    Confluent is an enterprise-ready, full-scale streaming platform that enhances Apache Kafka. 

    Confluent has integrated cutting-edge features that are designed to enhance these tasks: 

    • Speed up application development and connectivity
    • Enable transformations through stream processing
    • Streamline business operations at scale
    • Adhere to strict architectural standards

    Confluent is a more complete distribution of Kafka in that it enhances the integration possibilities of Kafka by introducing tools for managing and optimizing Kafka clusters while providing methods for making sure the streams are secure. Confluent supports publish-and-subscribe as well as the storing and processing of data within the streams. Kafka is easier to operate and build thanks to Confluent.

    Confluent's software is available in three different varieties: 

    1. A free, open-source streaming platform that makes it simple to start using real-time data streams
    2. An enterprise-grade version of the product with more administrative, ops, and monitoring tools
    3. A premium cloud-based version.

    Confluent Advantage Features

    Confluent has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Multi-language

      • Clients: C++, Python, Go, and .NET
      • REST proxy: Can connect to Kafka from any connected network device
      • Admin REST APIs: RESTful interface for performing administrator operations
    • Pre-built ecosystem

      • Connectors: More than 100 supported connectors, including S3, Elastic, HDFS, JDBC
      • MQTT proxy: Gain access to Kafka from MQTT gateways and devices
      • Schema registry: Centralized database to guarantee data compatibility
    • Streaming database

      • ksqlDB: Materialized views and real-time stream processing
    • GUI management 

      • Control panel: GUI for scalable Kafka management and monitoring
      • Health+: Smart alerts and cloud-based control centers
    • DevOps automation that is flexible

      • Confluent for Kubernetes: Complete API to deploy on Kubernetes
      • Automated Ansible deployment on non-containerized environments
    • Dynamic performance 

      • Self-balancing clusters: Automated partition re-balancing across brokers in the cluster
      • Tiered storage: Older Kafka data offloading to object storage with transparent access
    • Security that is enterprise-grade 

      • Role-based access control: Granular user/group access authorization
      • Audit logs that are structured: Logs of user actions kept in dedicated Kafka topics
      • Secret protection: Sensitive information is encrypted
    • Global resilience

      • Linking clusters: A real-time, highly reliable, and consistent bridge across on-premises and cloud environments
      • Multiple-region clusters: Single Kafka cluster with automated client failover distributed across multiple data centers
      • Replicator: Asynchronous replication that is based on the Kafka Connect framework
    • Support

      • Round the clock enterprise support from Kafka experts

    Reviews from Real Users

    Confluent stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust enterprise support and its open source option. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews: 

    Ravi B., a solutions architect at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “KSQL is a valuable feature, as is the Kafka Connect framework for connecting to the various source systems where you need not write the code. We get great support from Confluent because we're using the enterprise version and whenever there's a problem, they support us with fine-tuning and finding the root cause.”

    Amit S., an IT consultant, notes, “The biggest benefit is that it is open source. You have the flexibility of opting or not opting for enterprise support, even though the tool itself is open source.” He adds, “The second benefit is it's very modern and built on Java and Scala. You can extend the features very well, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.”

    Sample Customers
    Clearsense
    ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    University8%
    Educational Organization7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company31%
    Retailer15%
    Non Tech Company8%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise74%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cloudera DataFlow vs. Confluent
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera DataFlow vs. Confluent and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cloudera DataFlow is ranked 13th in Streaming Analytics with 3 reviews while Confluent is ranked 3rd in Streaming Analytics with 18 reviews. Cloudera DataFlow is rated 6.6, while Confluent is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cloudera DataFlow writes "A scalable and robust platform for analyzing data". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Confluent writes "Has good technical support services and a valuable feature for real-time data streaming ". Cloudera DataFlow is most compared with Databricks, Amazon MSK, Spring Cloud Data Flow, Hortonworks Data Platform and Informatica Data Engineering Streaming, whereas Confluent is most compared with Amazon MSK, Amazon Kinesis, AWS Glue and Databricks. See our Cloudera DataFlow vs. Confluent report.

    See our list of best Streaming Analytics vendors.

    We monitor all Streaming Analytics reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.