What users are saying about

Apache Kafka vs IBM API Connect

Apache Kafka
97 Ratings
IBM API Connect
32 Ratings

Apache Kafka

97 Ratings
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Score 9.1 out of 100

Based on 97 reviews and ratings

IBM API Connect

32 Ratings
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Score 8.8 out of 100

Based on 32 reviews and ratings

Feature Set Ratings

    API Management

    Apache Kafka

    Feature Set Not Supported
    N/A
    9.0

    IBM API Connect

    90%
    IBM API Connect ranks higher in 7/7 features
    IBM API Connect ranks higher in 7/7 features

    API access control

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.3
    93%
    5 Ratings

    Rate limits and usage policies

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.7
    97%
    5 Ratings

    API usage data

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.6
    86%
    5 Ratings

    API user onboarding

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.0
    90%
    5 Ratings

    API versioning

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.3
    93%
    5 Ratings

    Usage billing and payments

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.3
    83%
    5 Ratings

    API monitoring and logging

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.0
    90%
    5 Ratings

    Attribute Ratings

    • Apache Kafka is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend

    Likelihood to Recommend

    9.3

    Apache Kafka

    93%
    13 Ratings
    8.6

    IBM API Connect

    86%
    5 Ratings

    Likelihood to Renew

    9.0

    Apache Kafka

    90%
    1 Rating

    IBM API Connect

    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Usability

    10.0

    Apache Kafka

    100%
    1 Rating

    IBM API Connect

    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Support Rating

    8.6

    Apache Kafka

    86%
    7 Ratings

    IBM API Connect

    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Likelihood to Recommend

    Apache 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.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    IBM API Connect

    IBM API Connect is well suited for on-premises installation. We also have flexible cloud-hosted plans managed by IBM Cloud. Flexible options for API Security, consumer organization, easier UI-based API development options, and great workflow for product lifecycle management are unparalleled and would be a great fit for any organization.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    Pros

    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.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    IBM API Connect

    • Enhanced security with client id and client secret features.
    • Easy to deploy API changes through automation.
    • Good UI to manage APIs.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    Cons

    Apache 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.

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    Borislav Traykov | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Borislav Traykov
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    IBM API Connect

    • Can be a learning curve for beginners
    • API management configuration tool can be simplified more
    • UI can be improved more

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    Pricing Details

    Apache Kafka

    General

    Free Trial
    —
    Free/Freemium Version
    —
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    —
    Entry-level set up fee?
    No

    Starting Price

    —

    IBM API Connect

    General

    Free Trial
    —
    Free/Freemium Version
    —
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    —
    Entry-level set up fee?
    No

    Starting Price

    —

    Likelihood to Renew

    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

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    Juan Francisco Tavira | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Juan Francisco Tavira
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    IBM API Connect

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    Usability

    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

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    Jimesh V Shah | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Jimesh V Shah
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    IBM API Connect

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    Support Rating

    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.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 7 answers on this topic

    IBM API Connect

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    Alternatives Considered

    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.

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    Tyler Twitchell | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Tyler Twitchell
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    IBM API Connect

    The power of IBM APIC is much more in contrast to Apigee or any other product of the same domain because it is having DataPower as the backbone which allows for easy integrating with almost any platform, providing the highest level of security, handling millions of transactions at wire speed and also capable of transforming the message content as and when required. Secondly, it acts as a unified portal for all the services and we can manage all the API's from a single place and make changes. We can look for any services here, it acts as a repository for all the organization services and we can assign specific audience to specific services.

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    Rahul Malik | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Rahul Malik
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    Return on Investment

    Apache 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.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    IBM API Connect

    • The product helped us ensure our API’s are secured, helped us to build trust with our customers and partners
    • The TAT to doing integration using traditional methods like VPN etc has improved cos of API Connect by 80%
    • The cost of maintenance of the product is way lower than any other tech product we are using.

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    Abhijeet Davane | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Abhijeet Davane
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