Apache Pulsar
A distributed message broker for pub-sub and queue-based messaging at scale
- Also known as
- apache-pulsar
What is Apache Pulsar?
A message broker supporting both pub-sub and queue-based messaging patterns. It provides durable storage with strong ordering guarantees, horizontally scales to millions of topics and messages per second, and supports geo-replication for distributed deployments.
Apache Pulsar pricing
We don't have Apache Pulsar'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 Pulsar 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
- Pub/sub
- Delivery guarantee
- Exactly-once
- Ordering guarantee
- Per-partition
- Durable replayable log
- ✓
- Message replay / rewind
- ✓
- Wire protocol
- pulsar://
- Kafka-protocol compatible
- ✓
- Partitioned horizontal scaling
- ✓
- Geo / cross-region replication
- ✓
- Consumer groups / competing consumers
- ✓
- Dead-letter queue
- -
- Managed cloud offering exists
- -
- Hosting
- Cloud + self-hosted
- Built-in stream processing
- ✓
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- macOS
- Linux
- Windows
- Self-hosted
Integrations (30)
Independently observed- Kafka
- RabbitMQ
- MongoDB
- Cassandra
- Elasticsearch
- HBase
- HDFS
- InfluxDB
- Redis
- Solr
- DynamoDB
- Kinesis
- Azure Data Explorer
- ClickHouse
- PostgreSQL
- MariaDB
- SQLite
- Debezium MySQL
- Debezium PostgreSQL
- Debezium MongoDB
- Debezium Oracle
- Debezium Microsoft SQL Server
- Canal
- Aerospike
- Alluxio
- NSQ
- Netty
- HTTP
- File
- Kafka Connect Adaptor⇄•
Security & compliance
Known vulnerabilities: 1 (0 in the last 12 months), max severity MODERATE sourcea count reflects scale & disclosure, not quality
Apache Pulsar FAQ
Common questions about Apache Pulsar, answered from independent, dated evidence.
What is Apache Pulsar?
A distributed messaging system built for cloud deployments that enables applications to reliably publish and consume messages—either individually or as continuous streams—with sub-10-millisecond latency, supporting millions of independent topics and large-scale streaming workloads. It is indexed under Message Queues.
Source: https://pulsar.apache.org
Is Apache Pulsar free to use?
Apache Pulsar is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.
Source: https://pulsar.apache.org
What platforms does Apache Pulsar support?
Apache Pulsar supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.
Source: https://pulsar.apache.org
Can Apache Pulsar be self-hosted?
Yes. Apache Pulsar can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.
Source: https://pulsar.apache.org
What does Apache Pulsar integrate with?
We have confirmed 27 integrations for Apache Pulsar, including Kafka, RabbitMQ, MongoDB, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, HBase, HDFS and InfluxDB, plus 19 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.
Source: https://pulsar.apache.org
Is Apache Pulsar open source?
Yes. Apache Pulsar is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.
Source: https://github.com/apache/pulsar
Apache Pulsar alternatives
Other message queues we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- Confluent CloudA fully managed, serverless cloud platform for Apache Kafka enabling real-time data streaming, processing, and integration at any scalemedium · 73%
- WarpStreamA Kafka-compatible streaming platform that significantly reduces costs and operational complexity by storing data in object storage instead of local disksmedium · 73%
- TemporalA platform for building reliable, long-running applications with automatic state management and fault tolerance.high · 76%
- NATSlow · 47%
- RabbitMQA unified messaging and streaming broker for distributed application communicationlow · 47%
- RedpandaA fast, developer-friendly streaming data platform that works with Apache Kafka without ZooKeeper or Javamedium · 59%
Compare Apache Pulsar
Side by side against other message queues, attribute by attribute, with a source on every value.
The vioscaleAI 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 Pulsar, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Development activity | 63 | 0.09 | 5.9 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 87 | 0.06 | 5.5 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 45 | 0.07 | 3.3 | ✓ |
| Dependent projects | 50 | 0.06 | 3.1 | ✓ |
| Security score | 71 | 0.04 | 3.0 | ✓ |
| Stars | 79 | 0.03 | 2.1 | ✓ |
| Release cadence | 0 | 0.05 | 0.0 | - |
| Security posture | 0 | 0.12 | 0.0 | - |
| Package downloads | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
| Developer Q&A activity | 0 | 0.06 | 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 · 2026-09-10 · 65% |
Adoption
Content
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Faq | 6 items | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 66% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | Hosting: both · Ordering: per_partition · Paradigm: pubsub · Protocol: pulsar:// · Message replay: Yes · Persistent log: Yes | mediumsource · 2026-09-14 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 35 | mediumsource · 2026-08-14 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Java | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 95% |
Pricing
Release
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| History | 20 items | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 70% |
Security
Is Apache Pulsar the right choice for you?
Tell us the job, the constraints and what you weigh most, and we will rank Apache Pulsar against the rest of the message queues we index, using the same dated evidence weighted your way.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Is this your product?
This profile was built from public sources without asking you. You can take the badge below and use it anywhere, and you can claim the profile to correct anything we got wrong. Both are free, and neither moves Apache Pulsar up or down: nobody can buy rank here, including you.
Take the badge
Live, always current, and free to use on your own site. It shows Apache Pulsar's independent score and links back to this profile.
<a href="https://www.vioscale.ai/software/apache-pulsar" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://www.vioscale.ai/badge/software/apache-pulsar.svg" alt="Apache Pulsar, verified on vioscaleAI" width="330" height="76" loading="lazy" />
</a>Markdown, for a README →
[](https://www.vioscale.ai/software/apache-pulsar)Claim the profile
Verify you control the domain and you can correct the facts, add the sources we should be reading, and see how AI assistants are describing Apache Pulsar. Free, and it does not change the score.
- Correct anything wrong, with evidence
- Point our crawler at the pages that matter
- See which AI systems are reading this profile
Not the owner? How vendor profiles work