[Webinar] AI-Powered Innovation with Confluent & Microsoft Azure | Register Now
Future-proofing your Apache Kafka® investment and reducing your total cost of ownership is essential, which is many turn to managed Kafka services . In this in-depth comparison of Confluent Cloud vs Amazon MSK, we'll walk you through how each solution's features, scalability, and technical support stack up.
Founded by the original co-creators of Kafka, Confluent delivers a complete data streaming platform that lets you stream, connect, govern, and process your data wherever it lives, on-premises and across multiple clouds. Kora, our cloud-native Kafka engine, has been re-architected to power a seamless, fully managed experience on Confluent Cloud, one that's ready support all of your data streaming projects from inception to large scale.
Although MSK addresses some operational gaps, it still has many limitations. Confluent removes the majority of operational burden and common Kafka challenges you'll encounter throughout your data streaming journey.
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Sizing | Throughput-based
| Broker-based
| Throughput-based
|
| |
---|---|
Throughput-based
|
| |
---|---|
Broker-based
|
| |
---|---|
Throughput-based
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Provision | Self-serve, on-demand
| Self-serve, on-demand for Kafka only
| Self-serve, on-demand for Kafka only
|
Infrastructure as Code | For both control plane and data plane
| For control plane only
| For control plane only
|
| |
---|---|
Self-serve, on-demand
| |
For both control plane and data plane
|
| |
---|---|
Self-serve, on-demand for Kafka only
| |
For control plane only
|
| |
---|---|
Self-serve, on-demand for Kafka only
| |
For control plane only
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Infra Monitoring | Proactive monitoring
| Manual monitoring
| Proactive monitoring
|
Topic Monitoring | Free, pre-aggregated metrics
| Topic-level metrics cost extra
| Default monitoring is free
|
Upgrades | Always latest stable version
| Limited version support
| Limited version support
|
Software Patches | Proactive fixes
| Reactive fixes
| Reactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Proactive monitoring
| |
Free, pre-aggregated metrics
| |
Always latest stable version
| |
Proactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Manual monitoring
| |
Topic-level metrics cost extra
| |
Limited version support
| |
Reactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Proactive monitoring
| |
Default monitoring is free
| |
Limited version support
| |
Reactive fixes
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Cluster Expansions | Elastic scalability
| Manual data rebalancing
| Elastic scalability
|
Connectors | Pre-built and fully managed
| Self develop and manage
| Self develop and manage
|
| |
---|---|
Elastic scalability
| |
Pre-built and fully managed
|
| |
---|---|
Manual data rebalancing
| |
Self develop and manage
|
| |
---|---|
Elastic scalability
| |
Self develop and manage
|
Confluent delivers enterprise-grade capabilities above and beyond MSK's feature set to deliver a complete data streaming platform, equipping you to unlock countless data streaming and stream processing use cases. Plus, Confluent offers true deployment flexibility to support hybrid & multi-cloud architectures.
See the side-by-side comparison with MSK's features on key data streaming platform capabilites like stream processing, integration with third-party system, governance, security, and more.
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Connectors | Pre-built & fully managed
| Custom-built & self-managed
| Custom-built & self-managed
|
Stream Processing | Fully managed
| Adds complexities
| Adds complexities
|
No-code stream processing | Fully managed
| Custom-built & self-managed
| Custom-built & self-managed
|
| |
---|---|
Pre-built & fully managed
| |
Fully managed
| |
Fully managed
|
| |
---|---|
Custom-built & self-managed
| |
Adds complexities
| |
Custom-built & self-managed
|
| |
---|---|
Custom-built & self-managed
| |
Adds complexities
| |
Custom-built & self-managed
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Kafka UI | Fully managed
| Not available
| Not available
|
Infrastructure Monitoring | Proactive monitoring
| DIY monitoring
| Proactive monitoring
|
Topic Monitoring | Pre-aggregated and free
| PER_TOPIC cost extra
| Default monitoring is free
|
| |
---|---|
Fully managed
| |
Proactive monitoring
| |
Pre-aggregated and free
|
| |
---|---|
Not available
| |
DIY monitoring
| |
PER_TOPIC cost extra
|
| |
---|---|
Not available
| |
Proactive monitoring
| |
Default monitoring is free
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Authentication | Broad authentication
| Broad authentication
| Limited authentication
|
Encryption | End-to-end encryption
| Not supported
| Not supported
|
Vulnerability and Bug Patches | Proactive fixes
| Reactive fixes
| Reactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Broad authentication
| |
End-to-end encryption
| |
Proactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Broad authentication
| |
Not supported
| |
Reactive fixes
|
| |
---|---|
Limited authentication
| |
Not supported
| |
Reactive fixes
|
Service | Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | MSK Serverless |
---|---|---|---|
Data Governance | Fully managed
| Not available
| Not available
|
| |
---|---|
Fully managed
|
| |
---|---|
Not available
|
| |
---|---|
Not available
|
Future-proof your investment with a fully managed, cloud-native, and complete data streaming platform available everywhere
Learn how Confluent Cloud differs from Amazon MSK and the benefits your teams can realize
Overview of the direct and indirect costs of self-supporting Kafka and using Amazon MSK, and how Confluent can reduce your overall Kafka spend by up to 60%
Upgrading from Apache Kafka to Confluent is easy. Deploy in minutes. Pay as you go. Available on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.