Flink vs Kafka Streams/ksqlDB: Comparing Stream Processing Tools

Stream processing can be hard or easy depending on the approach you take, and the tools you choose. This sentiment is at the heart of the discussion with Matthias J. Sax (Apache Kafka® PMC member; Software Engineer, ksqlDB and Kafka Streams, Confluent) and Jeff Bean (Sr. Technical Marketing Manager, Confluent). With immense collective experience in Kafka, ksqlDB, Kafka Streams, and Apache Flink®, they delve into the types of stream processing operations and explain the different ways of solving for their respective issues.The best stream processing tools they consider are Flink along with the options from the Kafka ecosystem: Java-based Kafka Streams and its SQL-wrapped variant—ksqlDB. Flink and ksqlDB tend to be used by divergent types of teams, since they differ in terms of both design and philosophy.Why Use Apache Flink?The teams using Flink are often highly specialized, with deep expertise, and with an absolute focus on stream processing. They tend to be responsible for unusually large, industry-outlying amounts of both state and scale, and they usually require complex aggregations. Flink can excel in these use cases, which potentially makes the difficulty of its learning curve and implementation worthwhile.Why use ksqlDB/Kafka Streams?Conversely, teams employing ksqlDB/Kafka Streams require less expertise to get started and also less expertise and time to manage their solutions. Jeff notes that the skills of a developer may not even be needed in some cases—those of a data analyst may suffice. ksqlDB and Kafka Streams seamlessly integrate with Kafka itself, as well as with external systems through the use of Kafka Connect. In addition to being easy to adopt, ksqlDB is also deployed on production stream processing applications requiring large scale and state.There are also other considerations beyond the strictly architectural. Local support availability, the administrative overhead of using a library versus a separate framework, and the availability of stream processing as a fully managed service all matter. Choosing a stream processing tool is a fraught decision partially because switching between them isn't trivial: the frameworks are different, the APIs are different, and the interfaces are different. In addition to the high-level discussion, Jeff and Matthias also share lots of details you can use to understand the options, covering employment models, transactions, batching, and parallelism, as well as a few interesting tangential topics along the way such as the tyranny of state and the Turing completeness of SQL.EPISODE LINKSThe Future of SQL: Databases Meet Stream ProcessingBuilding Real-Time Event Streams in the Cloud, On PremisesKafka Streams 101 courseksqlDB 101 courseWatch the video version of this podcastKris Jenkins’ TwitterStreaming Audio Playlist Join the Confluent CommunityLearn more on Confluent DeveloperUse PODCAST100 for additional $100 of  Confluent Cloud usage (details)

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Streaming Audio features all things Apache Kafka®, Confluent, real-time data, and the cloud. We cover frequently asked questions, best practices, and use cases from the Kafka community—from Kafka connectors and distributed systems, to data mesh, data integration, modern data architectures, and data mesh built with Confluent and cloud Kafka as a service. Join our hosts as they stream through a series of interviews, stories, and use cases with guests from the data streaming industry. Apache®️, Apache Kafka, Kafka, and the Kafka logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. No endorsement by The Apache Software Foundation is implied by the use of these marks.