--- title: Apache Kafka Reviews meta\_title: 'Apache Kafka Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 132 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Apache Kafka works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.5 review\_count: 132 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-09' parent\_category: name: Big Data url: https://www.g2.com/categories/big-data --- ### Apache Kafka Pros and Cons: Top 5 Advantages and Disadvantages #### Quick AI Summary Based on G2 Reviews Generated from real user reviews Users highlight the **high scalability** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for growing data volumes in enterprises. [(5 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607356&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users value the **real-time data processing** of Apache Kafka, appreciating its speed, scalability, and reliability across systems. [(3 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607701&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users appreciate the **easy integrations** of Apache Kafka, enjoying seamless connections with their Java applications. [(2 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607769&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users praise the **high scalability and performance** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for handling large data volumes. [(2 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607741&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users value the **high scalability and performance** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for handling growing data volumes. [(2 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607949&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users struggle with the **operational complexity** of Apache Kafka, which increases resource consumption and limits message queuing capabilities. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2314620&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find the **data management issues** overwhelming, especially smaller teams needing dedicated expertise for maintenance and scaling. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2446024&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find that **debugging issues** in Apache Kafka can be challenging and requires significant effort to resolve. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607592&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find the **difficult learning curve** of Apache Kafka overwhelming, especially for smaller teams needing dedicated expertise. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2446055&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find the **limited customization** in Apache Kafka challenging, particularly during initial setup and management tasks. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2184783&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) ### 5 Pros or Advantages of Apache Kafka ##### 1. Scalability Users highlight the **high scalability** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for growing data volumes in enterprises. [ See 5 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607356&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Dakalo M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dakalo M.") DM Dakalo M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5.0/5 "Unmatched Scalability and Performance for Enterprise Data Growth" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High scalability and performance making it ideal for growing data volumes in enterprises. ![Priyanka R.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Priyanka R.") PR Priyanka R. Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Apache Kafka: Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High throughput and low latency, scalability ,Durability & Fault Tolerance ,replay ability & Retention Kafka retains messages for a configu ##### 2. Real-time Data Users value the **real-time data processing** of Apache Kafka, appreciating its speed, scalability, and reliability across systems. [ See 3 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607701&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Priyanka R.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Priyanka R.") PR Priyanka R. Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Apache Kafka: Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High throughput and low latency, scalability ,Durability & Fault Tolerance ,replay ability & Retention Kafka retains messages for a configu ![Akshat J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Akshat J.") AJ Akshat J. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "A strong and reliable tool for real-time data streaming" What do you like about Apache Kafka? Kafka handles large volumes of data really well and is very reliable once set up properly. We use it for real-time data processing between different p ##### 3. Easy Integrations Users appreciate the **easy integrations** of Apache Kafka, enjoying seamless connections with their Java applications. [ See 2 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607769&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Akshat J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Akshat J.") AJ Akshat J. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "A strong and reliable tool for real-time data streaming" What do you like about Apache Kafka? Kafka handles large volumes of data really well and is very reliable once set up properly. We use it for real-time data processing between different p ![Mohit G.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Mohit G.") MG Mohit G. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Great tool for event processing" What do you like about Apache Kafka? Kafka is highly scalable and easy to manage. Its disctributed architecture makes it handy for big organisation like ours. Easy to integrate with our ##### 4. Performance Users praise the **high scalability and performance** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for handling large data volumes. [ See 2 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607741&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Dakalo M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dakalo M.") DM Dakalo M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5.0/5 "Unmatched Scalability and Performance for Enterprise Data Growth" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High scalability and performance making it ideal for growing data volumes in enterprises. ![Abdullah H.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Abdullah H.") AH Abdullah H. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Impressive High Performance" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High Performance and easy to use as event driven in Microservices ##### 5. Performance Efficiency Users value the **high scalability and performance** of Apache Kafka, making it perfect for handling growing data volumes. [ See 2 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607949&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Dakalo M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dakalo M.") DM Dakalo M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5.0/5 "Unmatched Scalability and Performance for Enterprise Data Growth" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High scalability and performance making it ideal for growing data volumes in enterprises. ![Abdullah H.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Abdullah H.") AH Abdullah H. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Impressive High Performance" What do you like about Apache Kafka? High Performance and easy to use as event driven in Microservices ### 5 Cons or Disadvantages of Apache Kafka ##### 1. Complexity Users struggle with the **operational complexity** of Apache Kafka, which increases resource consumption and limits message queuing capabilities. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2314620&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Priyanka R.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Priyanka R.") PR Priyanka R. Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "Apache Kafka: Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Operational complexity, High resource consumption, limited Message Queuing Features ##### 2. Data Management Issues Users find the **data management issues** overwhelming, especially smaller teams needing dedicated expertise for maintenance and scaling. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2446024&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Dakalo M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dakalo M.") DM Dakalo M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5.0/5 "Unmatched Scalability and Performance for Enterprise Data Growth" What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? It requires dedicated expertise for monitoring, scaling, and maintenance. Smaller teams often find this overwhelming. ##### 3. Debugging Issues Users find that **debugging issues** in Apache Kafka can be challenging and requires significant effort to resolve. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1607592&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Akshat J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Akshat J.") AJ Akshat J. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "A strong and reliable tool for real-time data streaming" What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Initial setup and configuration can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re new to distributed systems. Managing brokers and zookeepers manually can get ##### 4. Difficult Learning Users find the **difficult learning curve** of Apache Kafka overwhelming, especially for smaller teams needing dedicated expertise. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2446055&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Dakalo M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dakalo M.") DM Dakalo M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5.0/5 "Unmatched Scalability and Performance for Enterprise Data Growth" What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? It requires dedicated expertise for monitoring, scaling, and maintenance. Smaller teams often find this overwhelming. ##### 5. Limited Customization Users find the **limited customization** in Apache Kafka challenging, particularly during initial setup and management tasks. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2184783&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Akshat J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Akshat J.") AJ Akshat J. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4.5/5 "A strong and reliable tool for real-time data streaming" What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Initial setup and configuration can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re new to distributed systems. Managing brokers and zookeepers manually can get ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Confluent](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/large_detail/large_detail_b087379a1153e7d513f37c83481c8ced/confluent.png "Confluent") Confluent 4.4/5(114) ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews) [ ![Google Cloud Pub/Sub](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/large_detail/large_detail_aeae116c52945fdecd7ed16d621cb315/google-cloud-pub-sub.png "Google Cloud Pub/Sub") Google Cloud Pub/Sub 4.5/5(39) ](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-pub-sub/reviews) [ ![MuleSoft Anypoint Platform](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/hd_favicon/d763ac0221fcc0848182458b48016e06/mulesoft-anypoint-platform%282%29.svg "MuleSoft Anypoint Platform") MuleSoft Anypoint Platform 4.5/5(775) ](https://www.g2.com/products/mulesoft-anypoint-platform/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/competitors/alternatives) ![Mahesh P.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Mahesh P.") MP Mahesh P. Software Engineer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 7/14/2023 "A distributed messaging system that offers high performance reliable communication" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Kafka is one of the best solutions that provides reliable communication across multiple independent distributed systems, Moreover, This communication is asynchronous which enables us to effectively leverage Kafka in our real-time data processing applications. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Integrating Kafka into the existing applications is a little complex task, as it demands the need of a tech-expert team to actually set up the Kafka infrastructure which eventually adds cost and effort. Also, the adoption of Kafka is not an easy decision to take as it also increases the complexity and maintenance cost of that application. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? I needed a robust technological solution to enable reliable communication across several core microservices running my business application. Apache Kafka really proved useful to have seamless asynchronous and reliable message transfers, Even with the increased traffic, Kafka helped me to achieve high-performance data communication across multiple sub-systems Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Nilesh B.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Nilesh B.") NB Nilesh B. Software Developer Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 12/5/2023 "Very Good" 5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Apache kafka is one of best to stream continuous messages. It streams continuousely without interruption. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Only issue is with message ordering if the quantity is too much. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? I used it to handle messaging my own crm projects. It is very smooth without lagging. Its gets messages without any issue. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![K Madhusudan C.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "K Madhusudan C.") KC K Madhusudan C. Software Engineer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 8/30/2023 "Distributed streaming system with high scalability and high performance" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Its ability to handle high throughput and low latency event streaming. Its partitioning system allows data to be distributed across multiple brokers making it horizontally scalable Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? it lacks built-in security features and is very complex to set up and configure. Also, it consumes too much of resources, especially memory. Message ordering is not guaranteed across multiple partitions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? We were using Apache Kafka for streaming events and catalog data along with Spark with some ETL operations. We built the pipeline making it autoscale in data bricks and AWS-managed Kafka cluster Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![north w.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "north w.") NW north w. Senior Software Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 6/16/2023 "Kafka for optimizing all the functionality" 5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Kafka is great when you want to enhance your software system and make it asynchronous. It's like the best most enhanced version of having a queue with partitions that you can leverage. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? So far it's great, documentation is great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? Solving the wait time for the requests and making our microservices more autonomous by having a well distributed system Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Ranjit Kumar M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Ranjit Kumar M.") RM Ranjit Kumar M. Lead Consultant Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 7/6/2023 "No better solution to support huge data streaming" 5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? It is fault tolerant and has a retention period for playback of undelivered data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Does not fit every where. It can only be used for huge data streams not for small applications where point to point data tranfer is required. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? It is zero fault tolerant which means your data is safe. Once you sends data to kafka you get tension free that it will get delivered at any cost. High Retention period. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 2/1/2024 Validated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Vaibhav J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Vaibhav J.") VJ Vaibhav J. Senior Principal Software Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 5/9/2023 "Rock solid and dependable system for messaging and streaming use cases" 5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? It's a stable product that serves almost all messaging and streaming needs. Various delivery guarantees help developers design different types of systems. Also, it provides clients and other utilities which are easy to use and speed up development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? Sometimes the re-balancing creates problems and makes the system unstable. Also, a few features are missing in the design, available in Apache Pulsar. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? The Security Analytics product used Kafka to park events received from different sensors and stream them in the ingestion pipeline. Also used it as a messaging system to pass general messages/payloads between components. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Shobit A.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Shobit A.") SA Shobit A. Software Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 9/15/2021 "Highly Scalable" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Highly scalable, easy to configure, Highly available, Guarantee sequential processing in a partition, No Data loss Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? debugging the production issues related to data loss, consumer lag, duplicate messages, lost messages Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? notification system, sending notifications to android/ios devices update the end-user about order processing and assignments Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 7/26/2023 Validated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Durgesh P.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Durgesh P.") DP Durgesh P. Technical Lead - Cloud & DevOps Practice Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 6/15/2023 "Kafka is one of the Best Open Messaging due" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Apache Kafka have the good platform support, also its adopibility make easy to get the community presence Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? There are few techical complexity like introducing zookeeper which bring some more understanding from business can be solved by simpler architecture Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? As MQ we used to consume the data and push to the streaming application to process these data in Hadoop Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Consulting](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Consulting") UC Verified User in Consulting Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 10/12/2023 "The best pubsub for both cloud and on premise" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? Powerful Feature rich Flexible design Can work both cloud and on premise Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? I can hardly think any , it's the best pubsub I have found Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? Seamless collaboration for all my products using IOT Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Martand S.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Martand S.") MS Martand S. Senior Data Engineer Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 2/11/2023 "best fast & distributed streaming service" 4/5 What do you like best about Apache Kafka? the best features of kafka are scalability &durability. it is fault tolerance so even if something bad goes, kafka manages itself. We do not have write logics to prevent data loss. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Apache Kafka? I would say dislike. it is more of a limitation, kafka is purely programming based. As a programmer I find it manageable but for a non-programming background person it can be a bit challenge to learn Java code. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Apache Kafka solving and how is that benefiting you? I am working with a large insurance company which deals in more than 20 countries. so we use kafka for order processing system. We are using streaming data pipelines to integrate kafka with databricks to maintain data warehouse & datamarts. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ## Work at The Apache Software Foundation? Claim this profile to respond to reviews, update product info, and reach in-market buyers. 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