I like how with Confluent, the entire setup can be done from the user interface or API calls, avoiding the headache of managing a self-managed cluster. It's really convenient because you just need to provision the Kafka topic, partition, and consumer groups, and it's ready to use. I appreciate the self-managed clusters, as I don't need to manage the backend infrastructure like other message queue services. The cross-cluster replication is a good feature, which is useful for disaster recovery and other activities. Additionally, estimating the volume of data and provisioning nodes accordingly is straightforward. You can spin it up in 1-2 days, and it's ready for all producers and consumers. Monitoring metrics from the UI and setting up alerts based on specific criteria is also a nice touch. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For authentication, you cannot use Keytab-based authentication, which is commonly used. Instead, you have to use service account-based authentication, which is generally available. If you want to use Keytab-based authentication, you need to use Confluent Mesh, which is again a paid software. I think Confluent Mesh should be part of the Confluent package itself instead of buying that package separately. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.