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The Data Streaming Landscape 2025

Data streaming is a new software category. It has grown from niche adoption to becoming a fundamental part of modern data architecture, leveraging open source technologies like Apache Kafka and Flink. With real-time data processing transforming industries, the ecosystem of tools, platforms, and cloud services has evolved significantly. This blog post explores the data streaming landscape of 2025, analyzing key players, trends, and market dynamics shaping this space.
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When NOT to use Apache Kafka
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When NOT to Use Apache Kafka? (Lightboard Video)

Apache Kafka is the de facto standard for data streaming to process data in motion. With its significant adoption growth across all industries, I get a very valid question every week: When NOT to use Apache Kafka? What limitations does the event streaming platform have? When does Kafka simply not provide the needed capabilities? How to qualify Kafka out as it is not the right tool for the job? This blog post contains a lightboard video that gives you a twenty-minute explanation of the DOs and DONTs.
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Data Streaming Landscape 2024 around Kafka Flink and Cloud
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The Data Streaming Landscape 2024

The research company Forrester defines data streaming platforms as a new software category in a new Forrester Wave. Apache Kafka is the de facto standard used by over 100,000 organizations. Plenty of vendors offer Kafka platforms and cloud services. Many complementary open source stream processing frameworks like Apache Flink and related cloud offerings emerged. And competitive technologies like Pulsar, Redpanda, or WarpStream try to get market share leveraging the Kafka protocol. This blog post explores the data streaming landscape of 2024 to summarize existing solutions and market trends. The end of the article gives an outlook to potential new entrants in 2025.
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Data Streaming Landscape 2023 with Apache Kafka Flink and much more
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The Data Streaming Landscape 2023

Data streaming is a new software category to process data in motion. Apache Kafka is the de facto standard used by over 100,000 organizations. Plenty of vendors offer Kafka platforms and cloud services. Many complementary stream processing engines like Apache Flink and SaaS offerings have emerged. And competitive technologies like Pulsar and Redpanda try to get market share. This blog post explores the data streaming landscape of 2023 to summarize existing solutions and market trends.
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JMS Message Queue vs Apache Kafka Comparison
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Comparison: JMS Message Queue vs. Apache Kafka

Comparing JMS-based message queue (MQ) infrastructures and Apache Kafka-based data streaming is a widespread topic. Unfortunately, the battle is an apple-to-orange comparison that often includes misinformation and FUD from vendors. This blog post explores the differences, trade-offs, and architectures of JMS message brokers and Kafka deployments. Learn how to choose between JMS brokers like IBM MQ or RabbitMQ and open-source Kafka or serverless cloud services like Confluent Cloud.
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Is Apache Kafka an iPaaS or is Event Streaming its own Software Category?

This post explores why Apache Kafka is the new black for integration projects, how Kafka fits into the discussion around cloud-native iPaaS solutions, and why event streaming is a new software category. A concrete real-world example shows the difference between event streaming and traditional integration platforms respectively iPaaS.
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Kappa Architecture vs Lambda Architecture for Apache Kafka Pulsar Data Lakes
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Kappa Architecture is Mainstream Replacing Lambda

Real-time data beats slow data. That’s true for almost every use case. Nevertheless, enterprise architects build new infrastructures with the Lambda architecture that includes separate batch and real-time layers. This blog post explores why a single real-time pipeline, called Kappa architecture, is the better fit. Real-world examples from companies such as Disney, Shopify, Uber, and Twitter explore the benefits of Kappa but also show how batch processing fits into this discussion positively without the need for Lambda.
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De Facto Standard API - Amazon S3 for Object Storage and Apache Kafka for Event Streaming
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Kafka API is the De Facto Standard API for Event Streaming like Amazon S3 for Object Storage

Real-time beats slow data in most use cases across industries. The rise of event-driven architectures and data in motion powered by Apache Kafka enables enterprises to build real-time infrastructure and applications. This blog post explores why the Kafka API became the de facto standard API for event streaming like Amazon S3 for object storage, and the tradeoffs of these standards and corresponding frameworks, products, and cloud services.
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How to choose the right Apache Kafka Offering - Confluent Cloudera Red Hat IBM Amazon AWS MSK
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Comparison of Open Source Apache Kafka vs Vendors including Confluent, Cloudera, Red Hat, Amazon MSK

Apache Kafka became the de facto standard for event streaming. Various vendors added Kafka and related tooling to their offerings or provide a Kafka cloud service. This blog post uses the car analogy – from the motor engine to the self-driving car – to explore the different Kafka offerings available on the market. The goal is not a feature-by-feature comparison. Instead, the intention is to educate about the different deployment models, product strategies, and trade-offs from the available options.
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