Apache Airflow vs. Confluent

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Airflow
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Apache Airflow is an open source tool that can be used to programmatically author, schedule and monitor data pipelines using Python and SQL. Created at Airbnb as an open-source project in 2014, Airflow was brought into the Apache Software Foundation’s Incubator Program 2016 and announced as Top-Level Apache Project in 2019. It is used as a data orchestration solution, with over 140 integrations and community support.N/A
Confluent
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Confluent Cloud is a cloud-native service for Apache Kafka used to connect and process data in real time with a fully managed data streaming platform. Confluent Platform is the self-managed version.
$385
per month
Pricing
Apache AirflowConfluent
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$0
Standard
Starting at ~$385
per month
Enterprise
Starting at ~$1,150
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache AirflowConfluent
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsConfluent monthly bills are based upon resource consumption, i.e., you are only charged for the resources you use when you actually use them: Stream: Kafka clusters are billed for eCKUs/CKUs ($/hour), networking ($/GB), and storage ($/GB-hour). Connect: Use of connectors is billed based on throughput ($/GB) and a task base price ($/task/hour). Process: Use of stream processing with Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink is calculated based on CFUs ($/minute). Govern: Use of Stream Governance is billed based on environment ($/hour). Confluent storage and throughput is calculated in binary gigabytes (GB), where 1 GB is 2^30 bytes. This unit of measurement is also known as a gibibyte (GiB). Please also note that all prices are stated in United States Dollars unless specifically stated otherwise. All billing computations are conducted in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache AirflowConfluent
Features
Apache AirflowConfluent
Workload Automation
Comparison of Workload Automation features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
9.8
10 Ratings
15% above category average
Confluent
-
Ratings
Multi-platform scheduling10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Central monitoring10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Logging10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and notifications10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Analysis and visualization10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Application integration9.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Streaming Analytics
Comparison of Streaming Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Confluent
9.1
2 Ratings
13% above category average
Real-Time Data Analysis00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Visualization Dashboards00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Data Ingestion from Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Low Latency00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Integrated Development Tools00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Linear Scale-Out00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Data Enrichment00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache AirflowConfluent
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

IBM Streams (discontinued)
IBM Streams (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
Score 7.9 out of 10
Tealium Customer Data Hub
Tealium Customer Data Hub
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Control-M
Control-M
Score 9.3 out of 10
Spotfire Streaming
Spotfire Streaming
Score 6.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache AirflowConfluent
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(10 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache AirflowConfluent
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
For a quick job scanning of status and deep-diving into job issues, details, and flows, AirFlow does a good job. No fuss, no muss. The low learning curve as the UI is very straightforward, and navigating it will be familiar after spending some time using it. Our requirements are pretty simple. Job scheduler, workflows, and monitoring. The jobs we run are >100, but still is a lot to review and troubleshoot when jobs don't run. So when managing large jobs, AirFlow dated UI can be a bit of a drawback.
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Confluent
If you have a need to stream data, real time or segmented structured data then Confluent is a great platform to do so with. You won't run into packet transfer size limitations that other platforms have. Flexibility in on-prem, cloud, and managed cloud offerings makes it very flexible no matter how you choose to implement.
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Pros
Apache
  • In charge of the ETL processes.
  • As there is no incoming or outgoing data, we may handle the scheduling of tasks as code and avoid the requirement for monitoring.
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Confluent
  • Products work great.
  • Training is available.
  • Customer support is good.
Read full review
Cons
Apache
  • they should bring in some time based scheduling too not only event based
  • they do not store the metadata due to which we are not able to analyze the workflows
  • they only support python as of now for scripted pipeline writing
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Confluent
  • Cloud based Azure platform features for Confluent lacks behind AWS And GCP
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Usability
Apache
Easy to learn Easy to use Robust workflow orchestration framework Good in dependent job management
Read full review
Confluent
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Apache
No answers on this topic
Confluent
The support from the Confluent platform is great and satisfying. We have been working with Confluent for more than a year now. They sent out resident architects to help us set up Confluent cluster on our cloud and help us troubleshoot problems we have encountered. Overall, it has been a great experience working with the Confluent Platform.
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Alternatives Considered
Apache
There are a number of reasons to choose Apache Airflow over other similar platforms- Integrations—ready-to-use operators allow you to integrate Airflow with cloud platforms (Google, AWS, Azure, etc) Apache Airflow helps with backups and other DevOps tasks, such as submitting a Spark job and storing the resulting data on a Hadoop cluster It has machine learning model training, such as triggering a Sage maker job.
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Confluent
For our use case it was very important that the technology we were working with fit into our Azure architecture, and met our data processing size requirements to stream data within certain SLAs. Confluent more than met our performance requirements and compared to the others scale options and cost to run it was more than financially viable as a platform solution to our global operations.
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Return on Investment
Apache
  • A lot of helpful features out-of-the-box, such as the DAG visualizations and task trees
  • Allowed us to implement complex data pipelines easily and at a relatively low cost
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Confluent
  • It enables us to develop event driven application.
  • It increases our ability to handle streaming data.
  • It reduces latency of communication.
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ScreenShots