Confluent Cloud vs Firebolt
Confluent Cloud
confluent.io
Firebolt
firebolt.ioSide by side
| Figure | Confluent Cloud | Firebolt |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $385/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · AWS Marketplace Software | 8.5 (#5) | 8.0 (#6) |
| Cloud availability | Confluent says the service is available on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud across more than 100 regions. | Self-managed Firebolt is generally available on AWS and GCP and in preview on Azure; the fully managed service is currently offered on AWS only. |
| Founded | 2014 | 2019 |
| Integrations | Confluent Cloud offers pre-built and fully managed Kafka connectors for sources and sinks such as databases, data lakes, and data warehouses. | It integrates with Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Postgres-compatible tools, Go, JDBC, .NET, Node.js, Python, Rust, SQLAlchemy, and REST API clients. |
| Product | Confluent Cloud is a fully managed deployment of Confluent’s data streaming platform, powered by a serverless Apache Kafka engine. | Firebolt is a high-performance, open-source analytical database for engineers with Postgres-compatible SQL. |
| Security | The page names RBAC, self-managed encryption keys, client-side field-level encryption, and audit logs among its security features. | Firebolt lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, HIPAA support, GDPR alignment, MFA, RBAC, and encryption in transit and at rest. |
Plans
Confluent Cloud
- BasicFree
- Standard$385 a month
- Enterprise$895 a month
- Confluent CloudFree
In their own words
Confluent Cloud
Confluent Cloud is a managed data streaming platform built on a serverless Apache Kafka engine. It is designed for real-time streaming, event-driven applications, analytics, and AI/ML workloads. Cluster choices include Basic, Standard, Enterprise, and Freight, as well as Dedicated clusters with pre-provisioned resources. Confluent says its cloud-native engine adjusts cluster infrastructure to workload needs. Cluster Linking replicates, synchronizes, and shares data across regions, public clouds, and organizations. The service includes managed Kafka connectors for databases, data lakes, and warehouses, serverless processing with Apache Flink, and a managed Stream Governance suite. Tableflow can materialize Kafka topics and schemas as Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake tables. Listed security features include RBAC, self-managed encryption keys, client-side field-level encryption, and audit logs. Users can manage clusters and topics through a web UI or CLI; supported client languages include Java, Python, .NET, Go, Node.js, and C/C++. It is available on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud across more than 100 regions. A free plan is available; paid plans start at $385/mo, and new signups receive a 30-day trial.
Firebolt
Firebolt is an open-source analytical database for engineers, with Postgres-compatible SQL and options for self-managed or managed deployment. It can run as a single binary on a laptop or scale to a cluster of hundreds of nodes in a customer’s cloud. Firebolt is designed for sub-second query latency and high-concurrency analytics, and supports Apache Iceberg and DuckLake using open storage standards. Deployment choices include a single binary, Helm chart, Kubernetes Operator, and managed service. Firebolt Core is free forever for self-hosted use, with no usage limits; it cannot be used to build a hosted SaaS that competes with Firebolt’s managed service. Managed compute is billed per second, with scale-to-zero, automatic start and stop, and autoscaling. Object storage is pass-through at $0.0264 / GB·mo, and the managed service includes $200 free credits. AI capabilities include query and embedding functions, vector search, an MCP Server, and a preview agent. Self-managed availability includes AWS and GCP, with Azure in preview; the managed service is currently AWS-only.