Optimizing your Kafka in 2024 and beyond
Some traditional businesses are being pushed to the cloud for the first time. Digital natives are assessing or refining their single or multi-cloud strategy.
We now know that cloud migrations aren’t a one-time- 2-month project, but an ongoing process. The Kafka Cloud comparison 2021 is an unbiased resource to help you assess which managed service may work best for you now and down the line.
If you haven’t already, get started by checking these key considerations when moving your Kafka to the cloud.
3 questions about your cloud requirements:
Use the filters to compare the most relevant managed Kafka services for you.
Which cloud do you want to host your Kafka on? (choose max 3)
Which features do you need?
Which Apache Kafka could work for you?
The relevant services are highlighted based on your selections.
Aiven
Amazon MSK
Azure HDInsight
Confluent Cloud
Instaclustr
Overview
| Service | Great for... | Superpowers | Pricing Model | Get Started |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The managed Kafka in any cloud you want. | Great for those who want an all-in-one Kafka with fast, reliable set up, no vendor lock in, and real human support. |
| Compute/storage utilization (all inclusive price, including network costs) | More info on Aiven for Kafka > (with developer tooling) |
 The one with open tooling that plays well with AWS. | Great for those who have set up an AWS shop and want granular control over their environment. |
| Resource consumption | More info on AWS MSK > (with developer tooling) |
 The Microsoft-backed Enterprise Kafka with a powerful big data ecosystem. | Great for a broad range of advanced messaging scenarios with Azure analytics and DevOps components. |
| Cluster billed per minute | More info on Azure HDInsight > (with developer tooling) |
 The one with fully-managed event streaming. | Great for developers and enterprises who want to go ‘ops free’. |
| Resource consumption | Docs Confluent with Lenses > Download ConfluentCloud > |
 The truly open-source one. | Great for those who want to scale applications without license fees or lock-in. |
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| Docs Instaclustr with Lenses > |
Hosted by...
| Service |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| ✔ | ||||||
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| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔* | ✔* | ✔* |
Deployment
| Service | Kafka version | Single/Multi Tenant | Terraform support |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.8 | Single by default | ✔ |
| 2.7 (2.2.1 recommended) | Single | |
| 2.4.1 (early April) | Single | ✔ |
| 2.7 | Either | ✔ |
| 2.5.1 | Single by default | ✔ |
Supporting Services
| Service | Managed MirrorMaker | Schema Registry | Kafka Connect | Kafka Rest Proxy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔ | ✔ (free) | ✔ | ✔ (free) |
| ✔(with glue) | |||
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Confluent Replicator | ✔ | ✔ | |
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Core Service Features
| Service | ACL management | No dealing with Zookeepers & cost | Access to Infrastructure Performance Metrics | Bonus features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
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| ✔ | ✔ (Cloudwatch) |
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| ✔ | ✔ |
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| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
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| ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
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Compliance
| Service | Compliance | Access to Infrastructure Audits | Authentication methods |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2013, SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA,PCI/DSS | Out-of-the-box integrations included | SSL, SASL/PLAIN, SASL/SCRAM |
| HIPAA eligible, PCI, ISO, SOC 1,2,3 | ✔ (Cloudtrail) | SSL, SASL/PLAIN, SASL/SCRAM |
| SOC2, PCI/DSS, HIPAA | Kerberos | |
| SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001, PCI, CSA (level 1), EBA | Can get our SOC 1/2/3 and ISO 27001 reports | SASL/SCRAM/SAML/SSO |
| SOC2, PCI/DSS,HIPAA | SOC2 and PCI available on request | SASL/SCRAM |