Question 1

Why should I use a managed cloud Kafka service?

Accepted Answer

Using a managed Apache Kafka service like Aiven for Apache Kafka, allows data teams to overcome the challenges of building, maintaining, and operating the Apache Kafka infrastructure while at the same time leveraging the elasticity, scalability, and global availability of the cloud.

Question 2

Can I run Aiven services within my own cloud account?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we offer a Bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) deployment model for strict control requirements or to take advantage of your cloud provider discounts. Please contact sales for more information, or check out our BYOC documentation.

Question 3

Which connectors can I use with Aiven for Apache Kafka?

Accepted Answer

Easily connect to your data producers and data consumers with 30+ pre-built Kafka connectors. Click here to view the full list.

Question 4

How do I reduce Kafka costs while retaining more historical data?

Accepted Answer

Tiered Storage reduces storage costs, increases operational flexibility, and provides unlimited data retention scalability.

Retain data indefinitely: Retain data in Kafka for extended periods or indefinitely, with incurring significant costs
Cost optimization: Reduce Kafka storage costs, especially for large datasets with long retention periods
Improve scalability and performance: Decouple compute (brokers) and storage (remote) to scale each independently
Simplify operations: Simplify cluster management, reduce maintenance downtime, optimize resource utilization, and reduce Kafka admin time spent managing operations
Innovation: Unlock new use cases where Kafka was once deemed impractical or too expensive

Question 5

What happens to my service and data during upgrades and migrations?

Accepted Answer

During any upgrade process, new Kafka nodes are started alongside your existing nodes.

They join the Kafka cluster, now a mixture of old and new nodes. Aiven code coordinates streaming data from old to new nodes and moves partition leadership to new nodes. Old nodes with no more data are then retired from the cluster. Read more for a detailed step-by-step explanation of how this works.

Question 6

How do I ensure adequate capacity if I’m expecting incoming data spikes?

Accepted Answer

Scaling options are available for all Aiven for Apache Kafka customers and require near-zero downtime, keeping your cluster up and running during the upgrade. Learn how you can increase the capacity of an existing Kafka cluster.

Question 7

What’s included in Aiven customer support?

Accepted Answer

We proactively monitor all services 24/7/365. Our personnel are automatically alerted to any service anomalies for immediate resolution. Additionally, your account includes email and chat support. Three additional support tiers are available for a fee. Learn more about support response times and plans.

Question 8

Is Aiven for Kafka cheaper than Confluent?

Accepted Answer

Yes. With Aiven’s BYOC model, our customers cut costs by up to 40% or more with simple, predictable pricing — unlike Confluent’s complex, usage-based fees.

Feature	Aiven	Confluent	Why it matters
Predictable TCO			Aiven's pricing provides clear and predictable costs, allowing for accurate budget forecasting and a lower Total Cost of Ownership.
Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)			Aiven offers a true Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) model, giving organizations the best control over their cloud environment, data residency, and security posture. Complete freedom to deploy Kafka in any public cloud with multi-cloud approach that ensures you're never locked into a single provider.
Commitment to Open Source			Aiven is built on 100% open-source technologies and actively contributes to the community, giving customers the freedom and flexibility to avoid vendor lock-in. Not just Kafka, but Kafka's entire open-source ecosystem - Connect, MirrorMaker 2, Schema Registry, and all essential components in one unified platform.
Powered by Diskless Kafka			Aiven offers Open Source Diskless Kafka topics for BYOC customers that can cut your cross AZ data replication costs by as much as 80%. Confluent’s Diskless Offering is proprietary and only available at cluster level without the flexibility of both low latency and diskless topics in the same cluster.
Optimised Provisioning			Aiven delivers opinionated Kafka with all the capabilities you love - legendary performance, retention, and replay. Pick throughput, retention, and replication tiers and click go. Get a secure, properly-sized cluster in seconds.
Scalable Growth			Aiven's architecture and transparent pricing model are designed to support cost-effective growth, allowing businesses to scale their operations seamlessly and affordably.
All-Inclusive Pricing			Aiven's all-inclusive pricing model bundles networking and other costs into a single, transparent price, simplifying budget management and eliminating surprise fees.
Unified Open Source Platform			Aiven provides a unified platform where the best open-source services like PostgreSQL and OpenSearch can be easily integrated, creating a powerful and flexible data ecosystem.
Open Data Governance			Aiven empowers customers with open data governance by supporting and contributing to open-source tools like Klaw, ensuring control over data policies without proprietary constraints.

A better approach to managed Kafka

Aiven for Kafka: A Head to Head Comparison

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Why choose Aiven for Kafka

Simplified Operations

Mature Ecosystem

Cost Optimization

Aiven’s Committed to Open Source

Enterprise Reliability

Streamlined Solutions

How our customers use Apache Kafka

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