Aiven Developer Tier for Apache Kafka®
Aiven is the platform for Apache Kafka® development. Start your cloud Apache Kafka service for prototyping, and upgrade when you’re ready to go live for as little as $29 / month with our new developer tier.
Service benefits
What's included in your developer tier Aiven for Apache Kafka?
Versatile, reliable, and scalable managed Kafka with 1MB/s throughput, 20 topics and 100 partitions perfect for building and prototyping with streaming applications. Add in Connectors for painless integration with sources and sinks like PostgresSQL and ClickHouse for $20 a month.
Our enterprise Apache Kafka®, at its lowest ever price
Get the stability and automation of Kafka as a service trusted by our enterprise customers, scaled for your prototyping needs without breaking the bank.
Master Event-Driven architectures
Build expertise using the exact managed Kafka implementation trusted by Fortune 500 companies, for as little as $29 a month.
Validate complex architectural concepts instantly
Skip approvals and resource provisioning to test mission-critical designs right away with a fully functional, reliable Kafka as a service.
Launch your next microservice today
Deploy a dependable, low-latency hosted Kafka cluster for side projects without any infrastructure overhead or cost commitments.
Enterprise-grade infrastructure
Experience the stability, security, and automation of the hosted infrastructure our largest customers rely on.
Ready to build?
Get started in three steps
Sign up for Aiven & create your project
No credit card needed.
Create your developer tier managed service
Your cluster provisions in under two minutes.
Connect & start building
Use Sample Data Generator to start producing messages in as little as 30 seconds, or set up your cluster autonomously with Aiven Kafka AI Skills.
Frequently asked questions
Developer tier Aiven for Kafka® is a fully managed Apache Kafka service offered at $29/month. It is designed for personal development, learning, testing, and hobbyist projects.
The Aiven developer tier for Apache Kafka® offers flexible, predictable pricing starting at $29/month for 1-day data retention. For extended retention needs, you can choose 3 days for $59, 5 days for $79, or 7 days for $99 per month. Want to simplify integrations? Kafka Connect is available at a consistent flat rate of $20 per month.
Absolutely. You can transition to a startup or business plan without disrupting service continuity, although a cloud migration may be required. Aiven handles the transition behind the scenes, ensuring your data and configurations are moved to the new plan without downtime.
Our developer tier is optimized for building and prototyping with the following technical specifications:
- Throughput: up to 1 MB/s
- Partitions: up to 100
- Retention: up to 7 days (additional retention options available)
- Topics: up to 20
- Kafka Connect: Available as an add-on
- Basic Support Included
Yes. The developer tier includes Karapace, an open-source tool that provides both a Schema Registry and a REST Proxy. These features allow you to manage Avro/JSON/Protobuf schemas and interact with your cluster via HTTP. You can review all the included features in the Aiven for Kafka documentation.
The best way to test is to connect your local application directly to your Aiven for Kafka endpoint using the provided SSL credentials. Additionally, Aiven provides a Sample Data Generator in the console to help you simulate message flow without writing producer code immediately.
Yes, Aiven provides monitoring for all developer tier services. You can view real-time metrics and service logs directly in the Aiven Console to track throughput and service health.
Yes. All data is encrypted at rest (on disk) and in transit (using TLS/SSL) to ensure the highest level of security. Enterprise-grade security is a standard feature across all Aiven plans, including the developer tier.
Ready to build?
Create your Aiven for Apache Kafka® developer tier service
Set up your managed Apache Kafka service for as little as $29/month. Simply access our web console or use our API, CLI, or Terraform to get started. You can also set up your cluster autonomously with Aiven Kafka AI Skills.