Redpanda vs. Kafka

Apache Kafka® compatibility without the Kafka complexity. See why more companies are choosing Redpanda as their reliable, cost-efficient, and scalable streaming data platform that works out of the box.

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Powering High Throughput and Low Latency at
HealthEdge
Moov
Aquatic
Moody's
Vodafone
Zafin

Why Redpanda?

Redpanda makes real-time data processing easy. Streamlined architecture, great performance, and developer-friendly tools—all without external dependencies. Build more, spend less, and be agile with the unified platform that simplifies building real-time applications.

Single Binary Architecture
Redpanda’s streamlined, single-binary architecture eliminates the need for multiple specialized components, seamlessly providing native Kafka functionality without the usual complexity.
Exceptional Latency & Scale
With Redpanda, experience 10x lower average latencies and a reduced hardware footprint, delivering the power to scale effortlessly to GB/s throughput.
Cost-Effective Solution
Redpanda provides 3-6x greater cost efficiency compared to traditional Kafka infrastructure, lowering both infrastructure and operational costs for your team.
24x7 Expert Support
Enjoy round-the-clock support from dedicated account managers, a direct Slack channel, helpdesk access, and solutions experts always ready to assist.

Key feature breakdown

Redpanda logo
Architecture
Streamlined Components
Single-binary deployment: brokers, schema registry, HTTP proxy, Raft consensus all built in
External dependencies on ZooKeeper/KRaft, JVM, schema registry, and HTTP proxy
Engine Configurations
Dynamically optimize topics for availability, consistency, latency, safety, and networking costs
Less flexible, unsafe ISR replication strategy creates potential for data loss
Cloud Storage Options
Production-proven tiered storage. Cloud Topics roadmap (mid 2025) for direct-to-object-storage persistence
Unproven tiered storage: production-ready as of 3.9.0 (fall 2024). No option to use object storage directly.
Provision
Cluster Sizing
Consultative guidance on sizing & deployment included
DIY effort
Automation
Continuous data and partition balancing built in
Requires separate Cruise Control system
Monitoring
Available natively via Prometheus
Requires 3rd-party tools
Ecosystem
Data Connectors
Redpanda Connect: 300+ data & AI connectors, config-based & stateless for ease of use
Kafka Connect: 200+ integrations, no AI, mix of stateful/stateless connectors
Kafka API
Redpanda natively supports the Kafka API
The industry standard for data streaming
UI
Redpanda Console is open source and works with Apache Kafka
Requires 3rd-party tools (like Redpanda Console)
Schema Registry
Built into the Redpanda binary
Requires separate infrastructure
Transactions
Part of Redpanda's Kafka compatibility
The industry standard for data streaming
Support
Access Experts 24/7
24/7/365 coverage for production outages
Community-based best-effort support
Security
Enterprise-grade features like SSO, RBAC, audit-logging & more
DIY effort, often requires 3rd-party tools
TAKE A DEEP DIVE

Start building with Redpanda

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Customer success stories

Finance
Zafin

How Zafin swapped in Redpanda and instantly simplified operations to accelerate business agility for its customers.

Software & Technology
Poolside

How poolside freed its team to train LLMs faster and create better AI models thanks to Redpanda BYOC.

Software & Technology
Deepomatic

How a computer vision software startup accelerated development 12X to meet enterprise demands.

WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY

Best-in-class experiences from startups to the enterprise

G2 Badge: Leader Winter 2025G2 Badge: Best Support Mid-Market Winter 2025G2 Badge: Highest User Adoption Winter 2025G2 Badge: Best Results Winter 2025G2 Badge: Best Relationship Winter 2025G2 Badge: Users Most Likely to Recommend Winter 2025
800M
events per day
Finance

"We had a large Kafka environment (800M events per day). I dropped Redpanda in and changed nothing and that's when I was completely sold."

Why Zafin switched from Kafka
View success story
5-6x
more efficient
4+TB
logs per day
Finance

"Redpanda was able to handle the same load on far less resources than Kafka required. It was 5 to 6 times more efficient, greatly reducing our hardware costs as well as support and licensing costs."

Discover StoneX's Easy Switch
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$1B+
trading per day
100x
faster processing
Finance

"Redpanda helped us grow from the hundreds of millions of dollars in trading per day to billions of dollars."

Alpaca's 100x Faster Order Processing
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14.5GB
per second
Cybersecurity

"We have operational agility with Redpanda, meeting stringent SLOs while keeping developers focused on high-value work. Redpanda's tiered storage saves up to 30% on storage costs, easily handling 14.5GB/second."

Discover Lacework's 1,200% Growth
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100
million users
100GB/min
throughput
Gaming

"Redpanda rose to the top of our list because we knew its obsessed over performance and reliability at scale. We tested the data platform for up to 100M users with zero performance blips at 100GB/min throughput and peaks of 100K transactions/second."

Ensure Flawless Performance for 100M Users
View success story

What's new at Redpanda?

Introducing Redpanda Agents: How to Build Private, Auditable AI Agents at Scale

Introducing Redpanda Agents: How to Build Private, Auditable AI Agents at Scale

Build secure, auditable, AI agents with Redpanda’s new connectivity capabilities — purpose-built for the enterprise.

AWS Summit London 2025

AWS Summit London 2025

Join us at the AWS Summit in April. We look forward to seeing you there!

Day 2 Operations with Redpanda

Day 2 Operations with Redpanda

Learn to manage and maintain Redpanda clusters in this hands-on 2-hour session—covering health checks, alerting, broker management, and more with expert guidance.

READY TO START?

Take Redpanda for a spin!

Looking to improve application performance and simplify data pipelines? Give Redpanda a try or get in touch with us to learn more.