What users are saying about
32 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.6 out of 100
Based on 32 reviews and ratings
97 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 9.1 out of 100
Based on 97 reviews and ratings
Attribute Ratings
- Apache Kafka is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend
Likelihood to Recommend

8.0
Apache Camel
80%
9 Ratings

9.3
Apache Kafka
93%
13 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew

Apache Camel
N/A
0 Ratings

9.0
Apache Kafka
90%
1 Rating
Usability

Apache Camel
N/A
0 Ratings

10.0
Apache Kafka
100%
1 Rating
Support Rating

Apache Camel
N/A
0 Ratings

8.6
Apache Kafka
86%
7 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache Camel
Message brokering across different systems, with transactionality and the ability to have fine tuned control over what happens using Java (or other languages), instead of a heavy, proprietary languages.One situation that it doesn't fit very well (as far as I have experienced) is when your workflow requires significant data mapping. While possible when using Java tooling, some other visual data mapping tools in other integration frameworks are easier to work with.

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employeesApache Kafka
Despite the disadvantages I list, I really believe that Kafka is the right choice whenever you need a queueing or message broker system. Kafka is way too battle-tested and scales too well to ever not consider it. The only exception is if your use case requires many, many small topics. Also, Kafka doesn't support delay queues out of the box and so you will need to "hack" it through special code on the consumer side.

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Internet Company, 201-500 employeesPros
Apache Camel
- Camel has an easy learning curve. It is fairly well documented and there are about 5-6 books on Camel.
- There is a large user group and blogs devoted to all things Camel and the developers of Camel provide quick answers and have also been very quick to patch Camel, when bugs are reported.
- Camel integrates well with well known frameworks like Spring, and other middleware products like Apache Karaf and Servicemix.
- There are over 150 components for the Camel framework that help integrate with diverse software platforms.
- Camel is also good for creating microservices.
Senior Software Consultant at Randstad
Cox CommunicationsBroadcast Media, 10,001+ employees
Apache Kafka
- Apache Kafka is able to handle a large number of I/Os (writes) using 3-4 cheap servers.
- It scales very well over large workloads and can handle extreme-scale deployments (eg. Linkedin with 300 billion user events each day).
- The same Kafka setup can be used as a messaging bus, storage system or a log aggregator making it easy to maintain as one system feeding multiple applications.

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Airlines/Aviation Company, 51-200 employeesCons
Apache Camel
- Open source solution relies on community for support
- Lacks graphical user interface for message routing and transformation definitions
- Relatively steep learning curve

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Logistics & Supply Chain Company, 5001-10,000 employeesApache Kafka
- The Kafka Tool is a community-made Java application that looks and feels from the past century.
- Logging can be confusing. This certainly shows when we have to do troubleshooting.
- Hybrid scenarios - pub/sub, but there are services in and outside a Kubernetes cluster. Then there are a ~3 options, but only 2 (the harder ones) are production-safe.
DevOps Team Leader
CognyteInformation Technology & Services, 1001-5000 employees
Pricing Details
Apache Camel
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Apache Kafka
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Likelihood to Renew
Apache Camel
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka 9.0
Based on 1 answer
Kafka is quickly becoming core product of the organization, indeed it is replacing older messaging systems. No better alternatives found yet
Global Technology Centre - Middleware
ProdubanFinancial Services, 10,001+ employees
Usability
Apache Camel
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka 10.0
Based on 1 answer
Apache Kafka is highly recommended to develop loosely coupled, real-time processing applications. Also, Apache Kafka provides property based configuration. Producer, Consumer and broker contain their own separate property file
Senior Software Engineer
Accion LabsInformation Technology & Services, 1001-5000 employees
Support Rating
Apache Camel
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka 8.6
Based on 7 answers
Support for Apache Kafka (if willing to pay) is available from Confluent that includes the same time that created Kafka at Linkedin so they know this software in and out. Moreover, Apache Kafka is well known and best practices documents and deployment scenarios are easily available for download. For example, from eBay, Linkedin, Uber, and NYTimes.

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Airlines/Aviation Company, 51-200 employeesAlternatives Considered
Apache Camel
We chose Apache Camel because it was lightweight, easy to get started with and because it had a groovy DSL since we were a grails shop when we started using it.
Lead Software Engineer
BrighterInternet, 51-200 employees
Apache Kafka
We really needed to get away from using a SQL database to act as a queue for processing records, so a new solution was needed. Kafka is a leading software application initially designed for queuing messages which is essentially what we were looking for. It has a great user community and is used across the industry. We also use and trust several other products from Confluent which helped seal the decision.
Senior System Engineer
NetDocumentsComputer Software, 201-500 employees
Return on Investment
Apache Camel
- huge cost saving and quick turn around in terms of extracting data from files and integrating them to our processes
- ease the work with java objects
- modernizing our API services
- ease of using it with Apache's TomCat server

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 10,001+ employeesApache Kafka
- Kafka makes the messaging itself more reliable (as it has the distributed storage by itself and the message doesn't disappear even after it has been consumed).
- Kafka can support a much higher volume use case, without too much extra pressure on the existed hardware.

Verified User
Strategist in Information Technology
Package/Freight Delivery Company, 10,001+ employees