News, guides, and engineering deep dives.
Practical guidance on Kafka, Flink, Iceberg, and real-time data.
Kpow vs Redpanda Console
Redpanda Console is free, and its governance is licensed to the broker vendor. Kpow prices per cluster and publishes the price. Which one fits which team.
Lenses vs Offset Explorer
Offset Explorer is a desktop purchase per named user. Lenses is a control plane billed by tier. What each costs, where each runs out, and who should pick which.
AKHQ vs CMAK
AKHQ ships releases. CMAK last shipped in April 2022 and still needs ZooKeeper. What each one costs to carry, where each runs out, and which to pick.
Apache Kafka vs Confluent Kafka
The broker is the same. What differs is licensing, bundled components, deployment models and support. Where the Apache line sits, what Confluent adds, and the dependency questions to ask.
Kafka-compatible cloud brokers
Redpanda and the Kafka-compatible brokers, evaluated from the operator's seat: compatibility proof, operational claims, TCO against tiered-storage Kafka, and benchmarks.
Conduktor vs Offset Explorer
Conduktor is a per-seat platform with a database behind it. Offset Explorer is a per-user desktop application. What each costs, and which fits which team.
Confluent Kafka in Docker
Running Confluent's Kafka images and the official apache/kafka image in Docker: a working compose file, the advertised-listeners fix, log levels and custom Connect images.
Data governance policy examples for streaming platforms
Worked data governance policy examples for Kafka: schema compatibility rules, topic lifecycle, PII classification tiers, ACL and RBAC templates, and lineage requirements.
Debezium vs Kafka Connect
Debezium and Kafka Connect are not alternatives: Debezium is a CDC connector family that runs on Connect. The real decisions are log-based CDC vs JDBC polling, and Connect cluster vs Debezium Server.