# Confluent Cloud vs NSQ

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Confluent Cloud

| Attribute | Confluent Cloud | NSQ |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 90.5 (72% (medium)) | 34.3 (38% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 3 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 39 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 25,775 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true}` | `{"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Confluent Cloud is a fully managed Apache Kafka service enabling organizations to stream high-volume, low-latency events between systems in real-time. It eliminates operational overhead through automatic scaling, multi-region replication, and costs significantly less than self-managed Kafka deployments. | Distributed message queue system designed for high-throughput, real-time message delivery across fault-tolerant clusters without centralized brokers. Supports both load-balanced queuing and publish-subscribe messaging patterns with minimal operational overhead and configuration complexity. |
| 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,"horizontal_scaling":true}` | `{"hosting":"self","ordering":"none","paradigm":"queue","protocol":"TCP","persistent_log":true,"consumer_groups":true,"geo_replication":false,"kafka_compatible":false,"managed_offering":false,"delivery_guarantee":"at_least_once","horizontal_scaling":true}` |
| integrations.count | 130 | 1 |
| 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":"statsd"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | MIT |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","GB"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Basic","summary":"Free tier with $400 credit for 30 days","description":"Getting started with data streaming","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"Pay-as-you-go","features":["infinite storage","audit logs","20%+ throughput savings"],"description":"Production-ready data streaming with advanced features","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Pay-as-you-go","features":["private networking","autoscaling to GBps+ throughput","32%+ throughput savings"],"description":"Mission-critical workloads with maximum scale and security","contactSales":false}],"summary":"Usage-based pay-as-you-go pricing with free tier option","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.confluent.io/fr-fr/pricing/cost-estimator/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:33:56.886Z","freeTrialDays":30,"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://nsq.io/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:31:09.381Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | - | 84 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.3.0","date":"2023-12-27T05:04:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.2.1","date":"2021-08-16T01:28:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.2.0","date":"2019-08-28T15:42:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.1.0","date":"2018-08-19T23:53:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.1.0-rc1","date":"2018-07-31T15:11:14Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.1.0-rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v1.0.0-compat","date":"2017-03-22T19:58:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0-compat"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.8","date":"2016-05-26T16:57:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.7","date":"2016-02-24T06:22:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.6","date":"2015-09-25T14:28:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.5","date":"2015-04-26T22:40:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.4","date":"2015-04-26T21:58:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.3","date":"2015-04-26T21:20:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.2","date":"2015-02-08T18:08:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.1","date":"2015-01-22T06:12:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.3.0","date":"2014-11-18T15:14:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.2.31","date":"2014-08-26T14:51:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.2.31"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.2.30","date":"2014-07-29T04:05:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.2.30"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.2.29","date":"2014-07-25T12:39:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.2.29"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.2.28","date":"2014-04-29T03:25:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.2.28"},{"url":"https://github.com/nsqio/nsq/releases/tag/v0.2.27","date":"2014-02-17T14:24:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.2.27"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 3.5 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fnsqio%2Fnsq&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Message Queues)

| Capability | Confluent Cloud | NSQ |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Messaging paradigm | Pub/sub | Queue |
| **Correctness** |  |  |
| Delivery guarantee | - | At-least-once |
| Ordering guarantee | Per-partition | None |
| **Durability** |  |  |
| Durable replayable log | ✓ | ✓ |
| Message replay / rewind | ✓ | - |
| **Interop** |  |  |
| Wire protocol | Kafka protocol, REST API | TCP |
| 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 | Self-hosted only |
| **Processing** |  |  |
| Built-in stream processing | ✓ | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:12:59.130Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*