Apache Flink CDC vs Debezium
Apache Flink CDC
github.comDebezium
debezium.ioSide by side
| Figure | Apache Flink CDC | Debezium |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Change Data Capture Software | 8.2 (#5) | 8.9 (#2) |
| Deployment | The documentation describes downloading and extracting Flink CDC and connector JARs, then running it with an Apache Flink deployment. | The most common deployment uses Apache Kafka Connect; Debezium can also be embedded in JVM applications or run through Debezium Server. |
| License | The repository states that Flink CDC is distributed under the Apache 2.0 License. | All Debezium project code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. |
| Purpose | Flink CDC is a distributed data integration tool for real-time and batch data, built on Apache Flink. | Debezium is an open source distributed platform for change data capture that streams database row changes to applications. |
| Support | The project directs users to its user mailing list for support and questions, and to Flink JIRA for problems. | The project points users to its documentation, user chat room, and Google Group for questions. |
Plans
In their own words
Apache Flink CDC
Apache Flink CDC is a distributed data integration tool for real-time and batch workloads, built on Apache Flink. It supports full database and sharded-table synchronization, schema evolution and data transformation. With its YAML Pipeline API, users can declare sources, sinks, routing, transformations and schema evolution rules. SQL and DataStream APIs are also available for defining CDC sources and custom Flink streaming applications. Listed pipeline connectors include Doris, Elasticsearch, Fluss, Hudi, Iceberg, Kafka, MaxCompute, MySQL, OceanBase, Oracle, Paimon, PostgreSQL and StarRocks. SQL and DataStream source connectors also include SQL Server, MongoDB, TiDB, Db2 and Vitess. Flink CDC 3.6 is listed as compatible with Flink 1.20 and 2.2; version 3.6.0 requires JDK 11 or later. Deployment is self-hosted: download and extract Flink CDC and connector JARs, then run them with an Apache Flink deployment. It is free under the Apache 2.0 License and lists Linux, macOS, Windows and self-hosted environments as platforms.
Debezium
Debezium captures row-level database changes and delivers them to applications as events, so they can respond to inserts, updates, and deletes. Its connectors use database logs for low-delay capture without requiring changes to the data model, and can take initial or incremental snapshots, filter schemas, tables, and columns, and mask selected values. Listed databases include MongoDB, MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Db2, and Cassandra. Connectors for Vitess, Spanner, Informix, CockroachDB, YashanDB, Ingres, and Milvus are marked incubating and may change without backward compatibility. A common deployment uses Apache Kafka Connect; Debezium can also run through Debezium Server or as a library in JVM applications. Debezium Server can send serialized events to Amazon Kinesis, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, and Apache Pulsar. Ready-to-use transformations support routing, filtering, and event flattening. Debezium is free under the Apache Software License 2.0. Its quay.io container images are for testing and evaluation, not production.