Lenses Reviews & Product Details

We’ve been using Lenses for about six years, and it’s been a solid part of our data workflow. The feature we lean on most is the ability to search and query data using SQL—it makes working with streams feel straightforward and familiar. The platform has been stable and dependable, and while it’s not showy, it does exactly what we need without unnecessary complexity.

We don’t actively use the API and admin capabilities these days, but they were really helpful earlier in our journey and gave us the flexibility we needed at the time. Overall, if you’re looking for a tool that keeps things simple and gets the job done, Lenses is a good choice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some of the functionalities are not open-source and in our case, creates a vendor lock-in. SQL Processors is the most clear example.

Handy, but the tradeoff doesn't pay off in the long run for us.

This is not bad per se, but for us this fact has always been a no-go to adopt this type of functionalities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I find Lenses to be extremely easy to use, which is a significant advantage in my work as a platform engineer on a Kafka platform. The intuitive design makes it accessible for both experienced individuals as well as those who are not very familiar with Kafka development. This ease of use extends to its specific SQL, which provides a straightforward way to troubleshoot problem cases and check topic metrics. The user-friendly nature of Lenses enhances productivity and efficiency, making my workflow smoother when dealing with complex tasks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There are ongoing bugs within Lenses that remain unresolved, highlighting a potential lack of responsiveness or prioritization in bug fixes, which affects my workflow. Additionally, there's a noted absence of a future vision for the product, hinting at stagnation or a lack of updates that keep pace with evolving user needs. A significant drawback is the insufficient and unclear documentation, which complicates the proper utilization and setup of certain features, including the use of their helm chart for setup. This lack of documentation makes it challenging to take full advantage of the product's capabilities. Overall, these issues contribute to a reluctance in recommending the product highly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The UI is simple and effective. For example, the topics listing easy to use and start working with. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The platform has shown little progress over the years. I have been using Lenses for more than three years, and there have not been any significant changes. When version 6 was released, it introduced a new interface, but the same issues remain: the ACLs listing is still too basic, there is no high availability, and the deployment process is complicated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is user friendly, easy to use and to get used to work with it. The amount of information shown and features is fine for a product like this Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Customer support and roadmap clarity definitely needs improvement, the product has been the same for the last years, lacking some features such as high availability. Any new feature has been released under additional licenses Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really like Lenses because of the ease with which clients can interact with their configurations. We offer this tool to the community because it's easy to intuit where the resources we need are, which simplifies interaction with elements like topics, consumers, and schemas. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't like the inference it makes from the schema registry, as it is not entirely optimal. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

This tool simplifies the process of visualizing your Kafka resources. The topics are presented in a clear and organized manner, and the way data is displayed is visually appealing, which makes working with it more comfortable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some features introduce a risk of vendor lock-in, which could limit flexibility and interoperability in the future. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lenses provides the much-needed visibility to Kafka and replaces Kafka CLI commands with UI, plus many other features.

Lenses is compatible with our very out-dated Kafka version, which is much appreciated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The pre-v6 Lenses is deployed per environment, and in our case, we end up having 4 environments. The v6 Lenses solves this major problem. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lenses is amazing at providing insights into the Kafka topics as well as offering a broad range of tools for administering Kafka data policies, ACLs, SQL Processors, Kafka Connectors. I appreciate how easy it is to explore data using the SQL Studio tool. Also the continuous monitoring and audit capabilities are providing good value and instant feedback about the state of the Kafka cluster. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It would be nice to have a richer set of capabilities for supporting DataOps, such as the possibility of exporting and importing Data Policies, security configurations and ACLs in order to configure multiple instances of Lenses deployed in different environments. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The support on their product! They are unparalleled and quick to respond to any question (even if the fault is not their own). Their team is always friendly and willing to help. It is a pleasure to work with them. Please never change! The slack community is a HUGE benefit for us users. The Lenses product is amazing and I am positive it has drastically increased our development times using Kafka. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lack of KStream functions that work in the KSQL Studio, but not the KStreams option. I would LOVE to build custom functions for KStreams, but I hear that is coming sooner than later! Also wish the product had a few more stream reactor connectors and configs for the connectors. Would also love a "data type" converter inside of the UI to convert between string, Avro, JSon ,etc. formats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- Beautiful, responsive UI for kafka overview and with lenses SQL for kafka topics browsing

- Advanced kafka broker metrics which simplify monitoring and alerting

- Seamless data integration capabilities using lenses SQL processors

- Data protection policies and role based UI

- Schema registry integration for avro based payloads Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- You need to use lenses UI for development of SQL processors: develop, export, import into prod. No developer centric workflow assumed Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.