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Apache Kafka vs. Microsoft Power Automate vs. RabbitMQ

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Apache Kafka

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AApache Kafka is an open-source stream processing platform developed by the Apache Software Foundation written in Scala and Java. The Kafka event streaming platform is used by thousands of companies for high-performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission-critical applications.N/A

    Microsoft Power Automate

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Power Automate is an advanced automation platform offering a range of features, including AI-powered automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process automation (BPA), digital process automation (DPA), and process/task mining. The platform aims to empower organizations to securely automate their operations at scale by leveraging low-code and AI technologies.

    $15

    per month per user

    RabbitMQ

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/ARabbitMQ, an open source message broker, is part of Pivotal Software, a VMware company acquired in 2019, and supports message queue, multiple messaging protocols, and more. RabbitMQ is available open source, however VMware also offers a range of commercial services for RabbitMQ; these are available as part of the Pivotal App Suite.N/A
    Pricing
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Power Automate Premium
    $15
    per month per user
    Power Automate Process
    $150
    per month per bot
    Hosted RPA add-on
    $215
    per month per bot
    Process Mining add-on
    $5,000
    per month per tenant
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Free Trial
    NoYesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Considered Multiple Products
    Apache
    Chose Apache Kafka
    Apache Kafka is built for scale. From high throughput and real-time data streaming, it has a strong advantage over RabbitMQ with its low latency. This put Apache Kafka at the forefront as the platform of choice for large datasets messaging and ensuring scalability when data …
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    Kafka is not a real messaging broker implementation as RabbitMQ or TIBCO EMS/JMS are. Although it can be used as messaging, we like the idea behind the Kafka (data isn't "passing by," instead it remains centra, so the client can revisit the data if necessary). This also …
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    I would only use RabbitMQ over Kafka when you need to have delay queues or tons of small topics/queues around.
    I don't know too much about Pulsar - currently evaluating it - but it's supposed to have the same or better throughput while allowing for tons of queues. Stay tuned - I …
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    It has very minimal overhead and doesn't have a steep learning curve.
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    - The biggest advantage of using Apache Kafka is that it is cloud agnostic - It handles super high volume, is fault tolerance, high performance
    Incentivized
    Chose 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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    We had lots of problems with active mq. That is why we started using Apache Kafka.
    Incentivized
    Chose Apache Kafka
    Confluent Cloud is still based on Apache Kafka but it has a subscription fee so, from a long term perspective, it is wiser to deploy your own Kafka instance that spans public and private cloud. Amazon Kinesis, Google Cloud Pub/Sub do not do well for a very number of messages …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Open Source
    Chose RabbitMQ
    RabbitMQ cannot resend messages like Apache Kafka but it seems to have the lowest latency in messages.
    Incentivized
    Chose RabbitMQ
    It is very easy to use as it has a simple function to connect and use RabbitMQ.
    It is having Fast Learning curve, Any newbies can learn it in a week or month. It is having proper documentation, we are able to find all the details about its functionality and usage of it.
    The …
    Incentivized
    Chose RabbitMQ
    Honestly, though we're still trying out Kafka and Pulsar, I'd go with them for message broker and as traffic buffers. We are only still using RabbitMQ because it's hard to transition off after writing tons of code custom-built for RabbitMQ. Kafka is better because it's way more …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    78 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    75 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    78 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    51 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    58 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    airSlate WorkFlow
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM MQ
    Score9 out of 10
    excentia Admin Tools
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Apache Kafka
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    TIBCO Messaging
    Score7.7 out of 10
    ServiceNow AI Platform
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Apache Kafka
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (19 ratings)
    8.6
    (89 ratings)
    9.9
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.3
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    7.9
    (12 ratings)
    6.5
    (4 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (39 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Apache KafkaMicrosoft Power AutomateRabbitMQ
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Apache
    Apache Kafka is well-suited for most data-streaming use cases. Amazon Kinesis and Azure EventHubs, unless you have a specific use case where using those cloud PaAS for your data lakes, once set up well, Apache Kafka will take care of everything else in the background. Azure EventHubs, is good for cross-cloud use cases, and Amazon Kinesis - I have no real-world experience. But I believe it is the same.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Very useful RPA tools for automating processes with minimal coding and drag-and-drop functionality, with a wide variety of triggers, including scheduled time-based triggers and activity-based triggers, such as modifying a file/list in SharePoint to run a Power Automate flow. Very easy-to-use UI with native integration with every Microsoft product, and a very low automation failure rate for deployed workflows.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    It is highly recommended that if you have microservices architecture and if you want to solve 2 phase commit issue, you should use RabbitMQ for communication between microservices. It is a quick and reliable mode of communication between microservices. It is also helpful if you want to implement a job and worker mechanism. You can push the jobs into RabbitMQ and that will be sent to the consumer. It is highly reliable so you won't miss any jobs and you can also implement a retry of jobs with the dead letter queue feature. It will be also helpful in time-consuming API. You can put time-consuming items into a queue so they will be processed later and your API will be quick.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Apache
    • Really easy to configure. I've used other message brokers such as RabbitMQ and compared to them, Kafka's configurations are very easy to understand and tweak.
    • Very scalable: easily configured to run on multiple nodes allowing for ease of parallelism (assuming your queues/topics don't have to be consumed in the exact same order the messages were delivered)
    • Not exactly a feature, but I trust Kafka will be around for at least another decade because active development has continued to be strong and there's a lot of financial backing from Confluent and LinkedIn, and probably many other companies who are using it (which, anecdotally, is many).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Sending confirmation email to clients and user once the flow is triggered.
    • Fetching or Dumping files from one location to another if the flow is triggered.
    • Schedule flow helps to send alerts and triggers the flow at a specific interval of time to carry out the required task.
    • Power Automate also be used to convert any file format to a specific file format and save it to the required location
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • What RabbitMQ does well is what it's advertised to do. It is good at providing lots of high volume, high availability queue. We've seen it handle upwards of 10 million messages in its queues, spread out over 200 queues before its publish/consume rates dipped. So yeah, it can definitely handle a lot of messages and a lot of queues. Depending on the size of the machine RabbitMQ is running on, I'm sure it can handle more.
    • Decent number of plugins! Want a plugin that gives you an interface to view all the queues and see their publish/consume rates? Yes, there's one for that. Want a plugin to "shovel" messages from one queue to another in an emergency? Check. Want a plugin that does extra logging for all the messages received? Got you covered!
    • Lots of configuration possibilities. We've tuned over 100 settings over the past year to get the performance and reliability just right. This could be a downside though--it's pretty confusing and some settings were hard to understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Apache
    • Sometimes it becomes difficult to monitor our Kafka deployments. We've been able to overcome it largely using AWS MSK, a managed service for Apache Kafka, but a separate monitoring dashboard would have been great.
    • Simplify the process for local deployment of Kafka and provide a user interface to get visibility into the different topics and the messages being processed.
    • Learning curve around creation of broker and topics could be simplified
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Steep learning curve.
    • It can be slow to develop simple solutions compared to other automation platforms such as Smarsheet.
    • Troubleshooting and developing can be frustrating without proper access to edit the code directly.
    • Only able to edit through the GUI and with expressions.
    • Many ways to do the same thing can be frustrating when you need to rework your flow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • It breaks communication if we don't acknowledge early. In some cases our work items are time consuming that will take a time and in that scenario we are getting errors that RabbitMQ broke the channel. It will be good if RabbitMQ provides two acknowledgements, one is for that it has been received at client side and second ack is client is completed the processing part.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Apache
    Kafka is quickly becoming core product of the organization, indeed it is replacing older messaging systems. No better alternatives found yet
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    The tool is very useful when used with its various native connectors, taking great advantage of the integration between the components and systems of the Office365 universe. However, its cost is still high, and automation using more advanced components containing AI resources becomes unfeasible for some companies. Due to the financial crisis that many companies are currently experiencing, investment in automation systems or tools is taking a back seat.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Apache
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Power Automate features a clean and intuitive user interface that allows users to create, manage, and monitor workflows easily. The UI is designed to be accessible to both technical and non-technical users, with drag-and-drop functionality for building workflows. Power Automate supports integration with a wide range of Microsoft and third-party applications. This flexibility in integration allows users to automate workflows across various systems, enhancing overall productivity and efficiency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    RabbitMQ is very easy to configure for all supported languages (Python, Java, etc.). I have personally used it on Raspberry Pi devices via a Flask Python API as well as in Java applications. I was able to learn it quickly and now have full mastery of it. I highly recommend it for any IoT project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Apache
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    both Community support and Microsoft official support typically respond to (and resolve) reported issues in a VERY expedient manner, usually going above and beyond for education and bugfixing. I have been thoroughly impressed with the level of support I had been provided in the past.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    I gave it a 10 but we do not have a support contract with any company for RabbitMQ so there is no official support in that regard. However, there is a community and questions asked on StackOverflow or any other major question and answer site will usually get a response.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    after reviewing the main features of Power Automate, the Microsoft trainer focused on some of our real life use cases implementation, from simple to more advanced.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    although it was productive, it is more difficult to stay focused and in a 7 hours a day online training (including screen share issues and the fact that the trainer just can't precisely show the exact location of your mistake)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Overall, our experience implementing Microsoft Power Automate has been positive, with a relatively low barrier to entry and a fast time-to-value—especially because it integrates natively with Microsoft 365, which we were already using extensively. With Respect to migration, I had a very good experience where existing workflows were reviewed and simplified. Unnecessary steps were removed. Business rules were reimplemented using Power Automate logic. We migrated Approval workflows, email-based notifications, SharePoint-centric processes, and simple integrations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Apache
    I used other messaging/queue solutions that are a lot more basic than Confluent Kafka, as well as another solution that is no longer in the market called Xively, which was bought and "buried" by Google. In comparison, these solutions offer way fewer functionalities and respond to other needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Power Automate is worlds ahead of Zapier in so many ways. The looping, DOM access, and flow controls are much better. I feel that accessing different data within previous connectors used in a flow is much easier in Microsoft Power Automate as well. The custom connector creation process is a lot more pleasant in Microsoft Power Automate. The DateTime data type is handles MUCH better in Microsoft Power Automate, which is reason enough to use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    RabbitMQ has a few advantages over Azure Service Bus 1) RMQ handles substantially larger files - ASB tops out at 100MB, we use RabbitMQfor files over 200MB 2) RabbitMQ can be easily setup on prem - Azure Service Bus is cloud only 3) RabbitMQ exchanges are easier to configure over ASB subscriptions ASB has a few advantages too 1) Cloud based - just a few mouse clicks and you're up and running
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I have not done any participations
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft's professional services provide hands-on support throughout the implementation lifecycle of Power Automate.This includes initial setup, configuration, integration with existing systems, testing, and deployment. They ensure that workflows are correctly designed, optimized for performance, and aligned with security best practices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Apache
    • Positive: Get a quick and reliable pub/sub model implemented - data across components flows easily.
    • Positive: it's scalable so we can develop small and scale for real-world scenarios
    • Negative: it's easy to get into a confusing situation if you are not experienced yet or something strange has happened (rare, but it does). Troubleshooting such situations can take time and effort.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • You can automate a lot of process very easy like automatic mails for status updates and such. This will save a lot of time and is more accurate, faster and up-to-date than a user can be.
    • Task approval is centralized and automatic reminders save us a lot of time.
    • The ROI is good if you have a lot of use cases and things to automate
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Positive: we don't need to keep way too many backend machines around to deal with bursts because RabbitMQ can absorb and buffer bursts long enough to let an understaffed set of backend services to catch up on processing. Hard to put a number to it but we probably save $5k a month having fewer machines around.
    • Negative: we've got many angry customers due to queues suddenly disappearing and dropping our messages when we try to publish to them afterward. Ideally, RabbitMQ should warn the user when queues expire due to inactivity but it doesn't, and due to our own bugs we've lost a lot of customer data as a result.
    • Positive: makes decoupling the web and API services from the deeper backend services easier by providing queues as an interface. This allowed us to split up our teams and have them develop independently of each other, speeding up software development.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Microsoft Power Automate Screenshots

    Screenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Work Queues, Initial pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal home pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal create pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Desktop designerScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Hosted RPAScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Display of DLP violations (on Run)