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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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Google Apache Kafka for BigQuery GCP Cloud Service
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When (Not) to Choose Google Managed Service for Apache Kafka?

Google announced its Apache Kafka for BigQuery cloud service at its conference Google Cloud Next 2024 in Las Vegas. Welcome to the data streaming club joining Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Confluent, and others. This blog post explores this new managed Kafka offering for GCP, reviews the current status of the data streaming landscape, and shares some criteria to evaluate when Kafka in general and Google Apache Kafka in particular should (not) be used.
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Is Amazon MSK Serverless for Apache Kafka a Self-Driving Car or just a Car Engine
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When NOT to choose Amazon MSK Serverless for Apache Kafka?

Apache Kafka became the de facto standard for data streaming. Various cloud offerings emerged and improved in the last years. Amazon MSK Serverless is the latest Kafka product from AWS. This blog post looks at its capabilities to explore how it relates to “the normal” partially managed Amazon MSK, when the serverless version is a good choice, and when other fully-managed cloud services like Confluent Cloud are the better option.
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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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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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