# Confluent Cloud vs Google Cloud Pub/Sub

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Confluent Cloud

| Attribute | Confluent Cloud | Google Cloud Pub/Sub |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 93.1 (73% (medium)) | 53.7 (50% (medium)) |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A managed cloud service for real-time data streaming built on Apache Kafka, offering automatic scaling, security controls, and pre-built connectors without requiring manual cluster management. It is indexed under Message Queues.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","question":"What is Confluent Cloud?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Confluent Cloud offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $0.75. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","question":"Is Confluent Cloud free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Confluent Cloud supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","question":"What platforms does Confluent Cloud support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Confluent Cloud, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","question":"Can Confluent Cloud be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 12 integrations for Confluent Cloud, including Salesforce, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Quickbooks, MySQL, Apache Flink and Schema Registry, plus 4 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","question":"What does Confluent Cloud integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and GDPR for Confluent Cloud. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Confluent Cloud not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.confluent.io/de-de/compliance/uk-tax-strategy/","question":"What security certifications does Confluent Cloud have?","confidence":0.7}]` | `[{"answer":"Google Cloud's managed messaging system that reliably routes messages between applications with support for real-time data processing and integration with analytics, log management, and data platforms. It is indexed under Message Queues.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"What is Google Cloud Pub/Sub?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Google Cloud Pub/Sub offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $0.27. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"Is Google Cloud Pub/Sub free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Google Cloud Pub/Sub. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"What platforms does Google Cloud Pub/Sub support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Not fully, on what we have confirmed. Google Cloud Pub/Sub is offered as cloud / SaaS and hybrid, and a hybrid deployment usually means some components can run on your own infrastructure while the rest stays vendor-hosted. We have not confirmed a completely self-hosted option, so check with the vendor if that is a requirement.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"Can Google Cloud Pub/Sub be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 11 integrations for Google Cloud Pub/Sub, including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataflow, Splunk, Datadog, Striim, Informatica and Confluent Cloud, plus 3 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"What does Google Cloud Pub/Sub integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Google Cloud Pub/Sub is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","question":"Where is Google Cloud Pub/Sub available?","confidence":0.5}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true}` |
| description.long | Confluent Cloud is a managed Kafka service that automates infrastructure management and scaling across multiple cloud providers. It combines Kafka for streaming data with integrated Apache Flink for stream processing, providing enterprise-grade security, hundreds of pre-built connectors, and usage-based pricing with no upfront capacity provisioning required. | Google Cloud's publish-subscribe messaging platform that delivers events to multiple subscribers with at-least-once delivery guarantees, cross-zone replication, and optional per-key ordering. It integrates with popular data processing, analytics, and monitoring tools for end-to-end data streaming solutions. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","ordering":"per_partition","paradigm":"pubsub","protocol":"Kafka protocol, REST API","message_replay":true,"persistent_log":true,"consumer_groups":true,"geo_replication":true,"kafka_compatible":true,"managed_offering":true,"stream_processing":true,"delivery_guarantee":"exactly_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` | `{"hosting":"cloud","ordering":"per_key","paradigm":"pubsub","message_replay":true,"persistent_log":true,"consumer_groups":true,"geo_replication":true,"managed_offering":true,"stream_processing":true,"delivery_guarantee":"at_least_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` |
| integrations.count | 120 | 9 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Google Ads"},{"name":"Google Analytics"},{"name":"Hotjar"},{"name":"Quickbooks"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"Apache Flink"},{"name":"Schema Registry"},{"name":"Apache Iceberg"},{"name":"Delta Lake"},{"name":"Slack","native":true,"category":"communication"},{"name":"Amazon S3","native":true,"category":"cloud_storage","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Elasticsearch","native":true,"category":"search","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"AWS S3","native":true,"category":"cloud_storage","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Google Cloud Storage","native":true,"category":"cloud_storage","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Azure Blob Storage","native":true,"category":"cloud_storage","direction":"outbound"}]` | `[{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"Cloud Storage"},{"name":"Dataflow"},{"name":"Splunk","category":"logs"},{"name":"Datadog","category":"logs"},{"name":"Striim","category":"data integration"},{"name":"Informatica","category":"data integration"},{"name":"Confluent Cloud"},{"name":"Apache Kafka"},{"name":"Knative Eventing","category":"serverless"},{"name":"Looker Studio","category":"visualization"},{"name":"Data Studio","category":"visualization"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","GB"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free tier. $0.14/eCKU-hour for additional eCKUs, $0.05/GB networking, $0.08/GB/month storage","features":["Autoscaling","Kafka ACLs","Data encryption","Audit logs","RBAC","Multicloud (AWS, Azure, GCP)"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"eCKU-hour"},"kind":"metered","note":"after first eCKU free","amount":0.14,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.05,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.08,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Serverless, fully managed clusters with zero ops","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"connectors":"80+ fully managed","uptime_sla":"99.9% (1 eCKU), 99.99% (2+ eCKUs)"}},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"~$385/month typical. $0.75/eCKU-hour, $0.035-0.050/GB networking, $0.03/GB/month storage","features":["Autoscaling at scale","Advanced governance","Audit logs","SAML/SSO","RBAC","Self-managed encryption keys"],"components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"eCKU-hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.75,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","note":"range $0.035-0.050","amount":0.035,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.03,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"High availability with 99.99% uptime SLA and audit logging","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"uptime_sla":"99.99%"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"~$895/month typical. $1.75-2.25/eCKU-hour (min 2), $0.020-0.050/GB networking, tiered storage","features":["GBps+ autoscaling","Private networking","Client-side field-level encryption","Advanced monitoring","All security features"],"minSeats":2,"components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"eCKU-hour"},"kind":"metered","note":"range $1.75-2.25","amount":1.75,"currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","note":"minimum 2 eCKUs","amount":2.25,"period":"eCKU-hour","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","note":"range $0.020-0.050","amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","note":"range $0.020-0.050","amount":0.03,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Mission-critical use cases with GBps+ scale and advanced security","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"scale":"GBps+","uptime_sla":"99.99%"}}],"addOns":[{"name":"Premium Support","components":[{"of":"first_50k_usage","kind":"percentage","rate":10},{"of":"next_50k_usage","kind":"percentage","rate":8},{"of":"next_900k_usage","kind":"percentage","rate":6},{"of":"usage_over_1m","kind":"percentage","rate":3}]},{"name":"Business Support","components":[{"kind":"fixed","note":"greater of $1000 or percentage","amount":1000,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"Free tier available. Pay-as-you-go usage pricing ($0.14-2.25/eCKU-hour depending on tier, $0.035-0.050/GB networking, $0.03-0.08/GB-month storage). Annual commitments available with tiered discounts. $400 free credits for new users over 4 months.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.confluent.io/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-09-18T15:55:20.212Z","freeTrialDays":120,"startingPrice":{"unit":"GB","amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Standard Pub/Sub","summary":"$40/TiB throughput + $0.27/GiB-month storage (first 10 GiB throughput free)","features":["At-least-once message delivery","Per-key message ordering","Pull and push delivery modes","Cross-zone replication","Automatic scaling and provisioning","Message retention and snapshots"],"components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":40,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.27,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Pay-as-you-go pricing based on message throughput and retention","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"free_throughput":"10 GiB/month"}}],"addOns":[{"name":"BigQuery Subscription","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":50,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Cloud Storage Subscription","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":50,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Kinesis Data Streams Import","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":50,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Other Source Imports (Azure Event Hubs, AWS MSK, Confluent Cloud)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":80,"currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"Usage-based: $40/TiB throughput, $0.27/GiB-month storage. Free tier: 10 GiB/month throughput.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cloud.google.com/pubsub","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T13:22:58.268Z","startingPrice":{"amount":0.27,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"}` | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.certifications | `[{"name":"SOC 1","status":"active"},{"name":"SOC 2","status":"active"},{"name":"SOC 3","status":"active"},{"name":"ISO 27001","status":"active"},{"name":"ISO 27701","status":"active"},{"name":"PCI DSS","status":"active"},{"name":"HITRUST CSF","status":"active"}]` | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | https://www.confluent.io/resources/topic/security/ | - |

## Capabilities (Message Queues)

| Capability | Confluent Cloud | Google Cloud Pub/Sub |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Messaging paradigm | Pub/sub | Pub/sub |
| **Correctness** |  |  |
| Delivery guarantee | Exactly-once | At-least-once |
| Ordering guarantee | Per-partition | Per-key |
| **Durability** |  |  |
| Durable replayable log | ✓ | ✓ |
| Message replay / rewind | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Interop** |  |  |
| Wire protocol | Kafka protocol, REST API | - |
| Kafka-protocol compatible | ✓ | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Partitioned horizontal scaling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Geo / cross-region replication | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Consumption** |  |  |
| Consumer groups / competing consumers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dead-letter queue | - | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Managed cloud offering exists | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud only |
| **Processing** |  |  |
| Built-in stream processing | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:08:15.402Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*