Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Confluent vs Starburst Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

Confluent
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Starburst Enterprise
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Confluent is 8.2%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Enterprise is 3.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Gustavo-Barbosa Dos Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good technical support services and a valuable feature for real-time data streaming
Implementing Confluent's schema registry has significantly enhanced our organization's data quality assurance. It helps us understand the various requirements of multiple customers and validates the information for different versions. We can automate the tasks using Confluent Kafka. Thus, it guarantees us the data quality and maintains the integrity of message contracts.
KamleshPant - PeerSpot reviewer
Connects to any data source from any region and offers unified access
There are no specific projects supported by Starburst regarding AI initiatives or machine learning projects. In the future, if we have all the data available, we can definitely capitalize on AI/ML and LLM capabilities to summarize data and gain insights. That's our future goal, but we haven't reached that point yet. There should be support for REST API data sources to access data from the web. We often have data coming in and communicate with data sources via REST API calls. I don't see that capability in Starburst currently; everything is through JDBC or ODBC. If Starburst could seamlessly access data using REST API capabilities, it would be a game-changer. The self-service data management features, like self-service materialized views, are great, but they can be a bit complex for basic users to understand.

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 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."
"The design of the product is extremely well built and it is highly configurable."
"I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and tools."
"We ensure seamless management of Kafka through Confluent, allowing all of our Kafka activities to be handled by a third party."
"The most valuable is its capability to enhance the documentation process, particularly when creating software documentation."
"The solution can handle a high volume of data because it works and scales well."
"Confluence's greatest asset is its user-friendly interface, coupled with its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with a vast range of other solutions."
"Their tech support is amazing; they are very good, both on and off-site."
"We have noticed improvements in performance using Starburst Enterprise. It handles complex data, including reading and partitioning files. We can add a new catalog to Starburst Enterprise by providing connection details and service account information. This allows us to integrate with existing tools, such as the Snowflake database, which we use for data protection in our project."
"It's very scalable, fast performing, and supports many catalogs."
 

Cons

"The formatting aspect within the page can be improved and more powerful."
"Confluence could improve the server version of the solution. However, most companies are going to the cloud."
"There is no local support team in Saudi Arabia."
"It could be improved by including a feature that automatically creates a new topic and puts failed messages."
"It could be more user-friendly and centralized. A way to reduce redundancy would be helpful."
"The Schema Registry service could be improved. I would like a bigger knowledge base of other use cases and more technical forums. It would be good to have more flexible monitoring features added to the next release as well."
"there is room for improvement in the visualization."
"It would help if the knowledge based documents in the support portal could be available for public use as well."
"Starburst Enterprise could improve by offering additional features similar to those provided by other SQL query tools. For example, incorporating functionalities like pivot tables would make it more feasible to use."
"There should be support for REST API data sources to access data from the web."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Confluent is an expensive solution as we went for a three contract and it was very costly for us."
"You have to pay additional for one or two features."
"Confluent is highly priced."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"It comes with a high cost."
"Confluent has a yearly license, which is a bit high because it's on a per-user basis."
"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."
"I haven't personally dealt with the pricing aspects first-hand, but from what I understand, it largely depends on the specifics of your setup, especially the machines you use on AWS. The cost of using Starburst Enterprise can vary based on the amount of data you're processing and the type of machines you opt for, whether on AWS or another cloud platform."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Streaming Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Confluent?
I find Confluent's Kafka Connectors and Kafka Streams invaluable for my use cases because they simplify real-time data processing and ETL tasks by providing reliable, pre-packaged connectors and to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Confluent?
They charge a lot for scaling, which makes it expensive.
What needs improvement with Confluent?
I am not very impressed by Confluent. We continuously face issues, such as Kafka being down and slow responses from the support team. The lack of easy access to the Confluent support team is also a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Enterprise?
I haven't personally dealt with the pricing aspects first-hand, but from what I understand, it largely depends on the specifics of your setup, especially the machines you use on AWS. The cost of us...
What needs improvement with Starburst Enterprise?
There are no specific projects supported by Starburst regarding AI initiatives or machine learning projects. In the future, if we have all the data available, we can definitely capitalize on AI/ML ...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Enterprise?
We use Starburst with one client who is exploring their ecosystem to remove data silos and enable data access across departments. It's a very big ecosystem, like a finance institute. They are curre...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Confluent vs. Starburst Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.