Apache Kafka
Distributed event streaming platform for high-performance data pipelines and streaming analytics
- Also known as
- apache-kafka
What is Apache Kafka?
Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform used for high-performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, and data integration. It provides permanent, distributed, fault-tolerant storage with guaranteed ordering, exactly-once processing, and built-in stream processing capabilities.
Apache Kafka pricing
We don't have Apache Kafka's full plan breakdown yet (its pricing page resisted automated reading). Here's what we could confirm. Always check live pricing for exact numbers.
What Apache Kafka does
The capabilities that matter for message queues, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Messaging paradigm
- Log / streaming
- Delivery guarantee
- Exactly-once
- Ordering guarantee
- Per-partition
- Durable replayable log
- ✓
- Message replay / rewind
- ✓
- Wire protocol
- -
- Kafka-protocol compatible
- ✓
- Partitioned horizontal scaling
- ✓
- Geo / cross-region replication
- ✓
- Consumer groups / competing consumers
- -
- Dead-letter queue
- -
- Managed cloud offering exists
- ✗
- Hosting
- Self-hosted only
- Built-in stream processing
- ✓
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- Self-hosted
Integrations (4)
Independently observed- Postgres
- JMS
- Elasticsearch
- AWS S3
Apache Kafka alternatives
Other message queues we track, ranked by the same independent score.
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Apache Kafka, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Package Downloads | 88 | 0.28 | 24.7 | ✓ |
| Github Activity | 63 | 0.18 | 11.4 | ✓ |
| Github Stars | 85 | 0.05 | 4.3 | ✓ |
| Docs Quality | 0 | 0.09 | 0.0 | - |
| Release Cadence | 0 | 0.12 | 0.0 | - |
| Security Posture | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
| Stackoverflow Activity | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 100 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 65% |
Adoption
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"hosting":"self","ordering":"per_partition","paradigm":"log_stream","message_replay":true,"persistent_log":true,"geo_replication":true,"kafka_compatible":true,"managed_offering":false,"stream_processing":true,"delivery_guarantee":"exactly_once","horizontal_scaling":true} | mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 4 | mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Java | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 95% |