Apache Flink is a framework and distributed processing engine for stateful computations over unbounded and bounded data streams. Flink has been designed to run in all common cluster environments, perform computations at in-memory speed and at any scale. And FlinkCEP is the Complex Event Processing (CEP) library implemented on top of Flink. Users can detect event patterns in streams of events.
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Google Cloud Dataflow
Score 9.2 out of 10
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Google offers Cloud Dataflow, a managed streaming analytics platform for real-time data insights, fraud detection, and other purposes.
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Pricing
Apache Flink
Google Cloud Dataflow
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache Flink
Google Cloud Dataflow
Free Trial
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Free/Freemium Version
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Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Community Pulse
Apache Flink
Google Cloud Dataflow
Features
Apache Flink
Google Cloud Dataflow
Streaming Analytics
Comparison of Streaming Analytics features of Product A and Product B
In well-suited scenarios, I would recommend using Apache Flink when you need to perform real-time analytics on streaming data, such as monitoring user activities, analyzing IoT device data, or processing financial transactions in real-time. It is also a good choice in scenarios where fault tolerance and consistency are crucial. I would not recommend it for simple batch processing pipelines or for teams that aren't experienced, as it might be overkill, and the steep learning curve may not justify the investment.
It is best in cases where you have batch as well as streaming data. Also in some cases where you have batch data right now and in future you will get streaming data. In those cases Dataflow is very good. Also in cases where most of your infra is on GCP. It might not be good when you already are on AWS or Azure. And also you want in-depth control over security and management. Then you can directly use Apache beam over Dataflow.
Python/SQL API, since both are relatively new, still misses a few features in comparison with the Java/Scala option
Steep Learning Curve, it's documentation could be improved to something more user-friendly, and it could also discuss more theoretical concepts than just coding
More templates for Bigquery and App Engine. There is only limited options for templates so the things we use can limit.
I would like native connectors for Excel (XLSX) to reduce the need for custom wrappers in financial pipelines.
Debugging Google Cloud Dataflow using only logs in Cloud Logging can be overwhelming sometimes, and it’s not always obvious which specific element in the flow caused a failure. IT uses a lot of time.
It really saved a lot of time and it's flexibility really can give you infra which is future-proof for most of the use cases may it be streaming or batch data. And with this you can avoid use of resource-heavy big data offerings.
Apache Spark is more user-friendly and features higher-level APIs. However, it was initially built for batch processing and only more recently gained streaming capabilities. In contrast, Apache Flink processes streaming data natively. Therefore, in terms of low latency and fault tolerance, Apache Flink takes the lead. However, Spark has a larger community and a decidedly lower learning curve.
