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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

    Pulsar CORE

    Score10 out of 10
    N/APulsar is a social media monitoring platform offering social listening, owned channels analytics, and social CRM. Customers use Pulsar for brand tracking and campaign measurement. The platform includes 4 tools: TRAC: Social media listening across topics, audiences and content diffusion. CORE: Owned channels analytics to measure your content performance and audience growth. FLOW: Social customer relationship management and social media publishing. TEAM: Analyse your internal social networks…

    $1,200

    150,000 mentions

    Pricing
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    TRAC (starter package)
    $1,200
    150,000 mentions
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPrices listed are on a 'starting from' basis. All TRAC packages have unlimited user log-ins, unlimited search queries and are charged on the amount of mentions pulled in. Bespoke packages are available.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    Considered Both Products
    Apache
    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
    Pulsar
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Mention
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM MQ
    Score9 out of 10
    Mention
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    TIBCO Messaging
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Social Suite by Reputation.com
    Score9.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (19 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Apache KafkaPulsar CORE
    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
    Pulsar
    I think that Pulsar is a good tool for brands or agencies who have a set list of competitors or subbrands that they are looking to do a monthly/weekly comparison of engagement metrics. When you have the brand account inputted, the data is shown in a visually tangible way and easy to comprehend.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Pulsar
    • Track engagements over time
    • Easy to use interface
    • Modern and updated display
    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
    Pulsar
    • Unfortunately, when exporting data it is often hard to read in an easy format.
    • I've used other tools where you can get historical data once you put into the tool but Pulsar cannot do that.
    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
    Pulsar
    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
    Pulsar
    Pulsar is not a complex tool by any means. The interface is updated and comprehensive, and I've used multiple tools in the past where the interface was very outdated and exporting data was often a difficult process since it was not well organized. The tool works well in visualizing complex data.
    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
    Pulsar
    I have not had to reach out to Pulsar support before but my coworkers have and said the support was good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Pulsar
    I think that Pulsar is one of the more updated platforms that I have used and the metrics exported/shown in the dashboard are accurate. I think that some tools report inaccurate metrics gathered from social media platforms due to the new APIs, something that often causes confusion and lack of clarity.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Pulsar
    • Input into our algorithm for brand strength and stature
    • Quick engagement tracking
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Pulsar CORE Screenshots

    Screenshot of The activity dashboard gives you a thorough snapshot of all the key numbers in your datasetScreenshot of Pulsar TRAC advanced location detection gives you up to 100% geo-localised data by city, country and GPS coordinatesScreenshot of The Network map visualizes the engagement patterns within your audience and identifies the most influential usersScreenshot of Slice and dice the data with contextual, behavioural and content filtersScreenshot of See the bigger picture. Pulsar CORE gives you integrated brand-level metrics across all owned channels, so you can measure the total reach and engagement you're getting.