--- title: Confluent Reviews meta\_title: 'Confluent Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 114 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Confluent works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.4 review\_count: 114 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-09' parent\_category: name: Big Data url: https://www.g2.com/categories/big-data --- ### Confluent Pros and Cons: Top 5 Advantages and Disadvantages #### Quick AI Summary Based on G2 Reviews Generated from real user reviews Users appreciate the **simplicity and scalability** of Confluent's cloud services, enhancing their experience with Kafka and Flink. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311123&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users appreciate the **effortless real-time data integration** through Confluent's managed cloud services, enhancing their workflow significantly. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311173&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users appreciate the **wide range of connectors** in Confluent, simplifying real-time data integration and enhancing productivity. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311192&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users appreciate the **simplified real-time data integration** with Confluent, benefiting from its managed cloud services and wide connectors. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311202&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Confluent, making data integration and stream processing effortless and efficient. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311276&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users note that the **cost estimation can be high** as data volume increases, requiring time to learn the system. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311235&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find Confluent to be **expensive** as costs rise with data volume and features are limited in lower editions. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311185&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users face a **steep learning curve** with Confluent, alongside rising costs as data volume increases. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311242&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find a **lack of features** in Confluent, especially with essential tools restricted to the Enterprise edition. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311077&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) Users find the **steep learning curve** challenging, requiring significant time to grasp Confluent's workflow and features. [(1 mentions)](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311263&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) ### 5 Pros or Advantages of Confluent ##### 1. Cloud Computing Users appreciate the **simplicity and scalability** of Confluent's cloud services, enhancing their experience with Kafka and Flink. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311123&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Confluent? I really liked how Confluent simplified working with Kafka and Flink through managed cloud services like Azure. The simple UI and wide range of connec ##### 2. Cloud Services Users appreciate the **effortless real-time data integration** through Confluent's managed cloud services, enhancing their workflow significantly. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311173&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Confluent? I really liked how Confluent simplified working with Kafka and Flink through managed cloud services like Azure. The simple UI and wide range of connec ##### 3. Connectors Users appreciate the **wide range of connectors** in Confluent, simplifying real-time data integration and enhancing productivity. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311192&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Confluent? I really liked how Confluent simplified working with Kafka and Flink through managed cloud services like Azure. The simple UI and wide range of connec ##### 4. Data Integration Users appreciate the **simplified real-time data integration** with Confluent, benefiting from its managed cloud services and wide connectors. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311202&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Confluent? I really liked how Confluent simplified working with Kafka and Flink through managed cloud services like Azure. The simple UI and wide range of connec ##### 5. Ease of Use Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Confluent, making data integration and stream processing effortless and efficient. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311276&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you like about Confluent? I really liked how Confluent simplified working with Kafka and Flink through managed cloud services like Azure. The simple UI and wide range of connec ### 5 Cons or Disadvantages of Confluent ##### 1. Cost Estimation Users note that the **cost estimation can be high** as data volume increases, requiring time to learn the system. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311235&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Confluent? The pricing will shoot up as your data volume grows up. Some features are only available in Enterprise edition. Also one must spend lot of time to und ##### 2. Expensive Users find Confluent to be **expensive** as costs rise with data volume and features are limited in lower editions. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311185&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Confluent? The pricing will shoot up as your data volume grows up. Some features are only available in Enterprise edition. Also one must spend lot of time to und ##### 3. Initial Difficulties Users face a **steep learning curve** with Confluent, alongside rising costs as data volume increases. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311242&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Confluent? The pricing will shoot up as your data volume grows up. Some features are only available in Enterprise edition. Also one must spend lot of time to und ##### 4. Lack of Features Users find a **lack of features** in Confluent, especially with essential tools restricted to the Enterprise edition. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311077&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Confluent? The pricing will shoot up as your data volume grows up. Some features are only available in Enterprise edition. Also one must spend lot of time to und ##### 5. Learning Curve Users find the **steep learning curve** challenging, requiring significant time to grasp Confluent's workflow and features. [ See 1 mentions ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=2311263&qs=pros-and-cons#reviews) See Related User Reviews ![Verified User](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User") A Verified User Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4.5/5 "Confluent: Go to platform for Real-Time Data Streaming" What do you dislike about Confluent? The pricing will shoot up as your data volume grows up. Some features are only available in Enterprise edition. Also one must spend lot of time to und ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Cloudera](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/hd_favicon/dcfb9e6879febb34cef773ddde921835/cloudera.svg "Cloudera") Cloudera 4.1/5(136) ](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudera/reviews) [ ![Lenses](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/hd_favicon/00711a899e586e752321ee33312a1509/lenses.svg "Lenses") Lenses 4.2/5(17) ](https://www.g2.com/products/lenses/reviews) [ ![Apache Kafka](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/large_detail/large_detail_809aa88d3571ee805a47d8fb156ba412/apache-kafka.jpg "Apache Kafka") Apache Kafka 4.5/5(132) ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-kafka/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/confluent/competitors/alternatives) ![Verified User in Sports](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Sports") AS Verified User in Sports Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4/7/2022 "Easiest path to production Kafka" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? We had a working Kafka cluster in minutes that was easy to experiment with and run various load testing scenarios. When we switched to a production load it was just as simple. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? We had some configuration issues early because of signup on their site directly vs through the cloud marketplace, eventually got it sorted - but was a hassle. Depending on your architecture and usage price can be fairly high. So far we are happy with overall cost vs managing our own. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? We needed a reliable messaging infrastructure with: easy polyglot support, reliable replay, batched message handling, automated scaling, and downstream integrations (connectors). Confluent delivers it all with a slick ops UI. For fully managed Kafka, we don't see any competitor that comes close to Confluent. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: Seller invite ![Nicolas E.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Nicolas E.") NE Nicolas E. Lead Architect Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4/11/2022 "Good managed Kafka Cluster, a bit expensive however for connect and ksqldb" 3/5 What do you like best about Confluent? Managed Kafka cluster, confluent API, Great documentation and community Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? The cost is a bit prohibitive for the pay per use cluster since ksqldb creates so many internal topics (changelogs, repartitions) and the pricing for managed ksqldb is very constraining, and UDFs are not supported. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? Event driven microservices, stream processing pipelines, redefining our architecture where Kafka is the single source of truth. Productivity is not yet there yet since there is a certain learning curve and paradigm shift for developers on our team not yet acquired. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: Seller invite ![Kieran M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Kieran M.") KM Kieran M. CTO Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4/8/2022 "Reliable Cloud Kafka" 4/5 What do you like best about Confluent? We don't have to maintain our Kafka brokers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? Pricing by partition & It would be great to be able to assign more granular permissions to users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Confluent: Consider your architecture requirements carefully - don't over-engineer. Use SaaS where appropriate for your organisation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? Supporting our Event Driven Architecture. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: Seller invite ![Manu C.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Manu C.") MC Manu C. Technical Lead Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 2/10/2022 "Best Streaming Platform" 5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? Kafka topics store more data in comparison to Kinesis service provided by AWS. This gives more flexibility to handle large amount of data for our processing purposes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? Managed service provides a better environment for our development and other purposes. It gives a plug and play feature to work with however when we talk about Kafka, we need to set up various things on our own which makes it a little complex in comparison to any managed service. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? We are using Kafka to have the near real time ingestion data pipeline. It allows us to move the data as and when the data arrives in the staging layer which we later pick up to create any KPIs or KRIs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Computer Software](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Computer Software") CC Verified User in Computer Software Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 1/7/2022 "Confluent: a great platform for asynchronous communication and data processing" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? I really like the Apache Kafka broker, the Avro serialization that is well integrated with the confluent schema registry. The schema registry can spot potential bugs related to malformed data. I'm using a lot also the Connect framework, allowing to integrate many existing systems without the need to write new code. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? I think that it should be more evident the difference between the open-source Apache Kafka echosystem and the confluent platform. The difference between the two should be more transparent in what is possible to do or not to do without paying a confluent license. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? Confluent allows me to integrate complex systems togheter. It solves the asynchronous communication, backpressure among slow systems, and reprocessing of data pipelines. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad") UT Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 1/31/2022 "Simplicity at its Best" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? I find it an excellent platform to have Managed Kafka, and the flexibility it offers is amazing. I liked the part of not managing the brokers and zookeepers and maintaining good abstraction while maintaining security features and separation of workloads with different clusters within a single environment. I find it better than others when coming to support, you will potentially get more realistic answers than other cloud-provided managed Kafka. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? Not many cons. confluent UI could be improved a bit more and ccloud CLI should also offer much more options as in Kafka CLI. Should offer & expose some APIs to monitor the clusters and metrics. Should offer IaC(terraform) could be game-changing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? No more downtimes have been observed when compared to self-managed systems. Support from Confluent for the issues which cannot be easily solved by engineers. Our clients business definitely improved Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Internet](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Internet") AI Verified User in Internet Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5/17/2022 "Confulent review in nanobebe" 4/5 What do you like best about Confluent? Easy to use and navigate, UI looks good and works well, can't see Avro messages Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? a bit hard to get logs and good observability. I Think confluent should notify users when outage notify users via emails when they happen Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? IOT Telemetry Bulk inserts, easy to use and no maintece requried Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: Seller invite ![Dilip k.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Dilip k.") DK Dilip k. Senior Cloud and Devops Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 1/11/2022 "Best Streaming Platform on the cloud" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? Easiest to set up and get the work done using the documentation provided. Excellent customer support and will easily understand the concepts so quickly and can create a significant impact in the businesses. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? There is room for a lot of improvement, and there is a need to introduce a lot of features to enhance the product and to match the product. Compared to others in the current market, It is getting its edge in the requirements. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? Data streaming service on the cloud and excellent documentation provided to understand the working easily and help the projects reduce time. Ideal usage will give your project a great time saving and significant cost-saving indeed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Aishwarya G.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Aishwarya G.") AG Aishwarya G. Assistant Professor Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 2/8/2022 "Overall best but few shortcomings" 5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? Compared to AWS kinesis, it does not have any message limits and highly customized and scalable streaming technology. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? It is lacking in terms of managed service and detailed information regarding the message delivery. There could be major enhancements in terms of enterprise support that we can use in AWS kinesis. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? We are using this software in a few of the POCs where we are streaming data from MS SQL server (operational data store) to Oracle server(for analytics) using pyspark and confluent kafka through hive tables. This is being done using Oracle CDC connector to implement DWH requirements. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Aakash A.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Aakash A.") AA Aakash A. Technical Lead Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 1/28/2022 "Great Streaming technology compared to Kinesis" 5/5 What do you like best about Confluent? We have the freedom of limits like kinesis we are bound. In my opinion, kinesis is very good technology in the market. Great connectivity with other data sources. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Confluent? The only suggestion is, please have two versions, one is the existing one which confluent cloud is and launch the second one which is fully managed. This will greatly help the newbies in kafka environment Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Confluent: NA Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Confluent solving and how is that benefiting you? Creating the data pipelines from mysql to hive, hive then ingesting the data into kafka in serialization format i.e., Avro. At consumer side, we have a kafka connector (JDBC CDC connector) to load to mysql server Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. 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