Aiven for Apache Kafka vs AutoMQ
Aiven for Apache Kafka
aiven.io
AutoMQ
automq.comSide by side
| Figure | Aiven for Apache Kafka | AutoMQ |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $35/mo | $300/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 2 |
| Spec score · Event Streaming Platforms | 9.4 (#1) | 8.4 (#3) |
| Compliance | Aiven states compliance with ISO 27000-series standards, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and PCI DSS, and provides an ISAE 3000/SOC 2 Type II report. | AutoMQ lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and GDPR programs on its security page. |
| Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland | Hong Kong |
| Security | Kafka connections can use mTLS and/or SASL authentication with ACL authorization, and data at rest is encrypted on disk or object storage. | The security page describes TLS or mTLS for Kafka client connections, optional encryption at rest for AWS BYOC, and RBAC for AutoMQ Cloud control-plane operations. |
| Storage | Tiered storage and diskless topics let Kafka store topic data in cloud object storage, while storage and compute scale independently. | AutoMQ Software supports S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, MinIO, and Ceph. |
| Trial | The pricing FAQ says customers can try a free 30-day trial for more memory or advanced features. | The site advertises a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. |
| What it does | Aiven for Apache Kafka is a fully managed Kafka service for event-driven applications, data pipelines and stream processing. | AutoMQ is Kafka-compatible streaming software that runs Kafka on cloud object storage. |
Plans
Aiven for Apache Kafka
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Developer$35 a month
- Professional$180 a month
In their own words
Aiven for Apache Kafka
Aiven for Apache Kafka is a managed Kafka service that handles provisioning, patching, backups, security, and high availability. It runs on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, DigitalOcean, OVH, and UpCloud, with cloud availability varying by plan. Tiered storage and diskless topics can keep topic data in cloud object storage so storage and compute scale independently. A managed Schema Registry powered by the open-source Karapace project is included, alongside predictive consumer-lag monitoring, Kafka Connect compatibility, and a REST proxy. Aiven describes clusters with automatic node recovery and multi-node deployment across availability zones, and lists a 99.99% uptime SLA for Professional. Connections can use mTLS and/or SASL authentication with ACL authorization; stored data is encrypted. The Free plan costs nothing and is capped at 250 KiB/s throughput, three days of retention, and five topics with two partitions each. Developer costs $35 a month, while Professional costs $180 a month. A free 30-day trial is listed for more memory or advanced features.
AutoMQ
AutoMQ is Kafka-compatible streaming software that runs Kafka on cloud object storage. It supports S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, MinIO, and Ceph, and can be deployed on premises or in private and public clouds by binary, Helm, or Docker Compose. AutoMQ states sub-10ms P99 latency and automatic scaling with traffic, including partition rebalancing across brokers. Table Topic can materialize Kafka topics as Iceberg or Delta Lake tables without ETL pipelines, for direct querying with Spark, Trino, or Flink. Managed Connector runs Kafka Connect workers in a customer’s Kubernetes environment, with logs and monitoring for throughput, task health, failures, and anomalies. The platform lists stream processing, schema registry, exactly-once delivery, a maximum 90-day retention period, and 300 connectors. Supported client languages include Java, C/C++, Go, Python, and NodeJS. Pro costs $300 a month; Enterprise pricing is by contact. There is no free plan, but a 30-day free trial requires no credit card.