Best tools to manage multiple Kafka clusters from one place
ComparisonsManaging multiple Kafka clusters from one place means one tool that connects to every cluster you run, whatever distribution it is, shows them side by side, and applies one access model across all of them. The options are the multi-cluster Kafka UIs (Kpow, Kafbat UI, AKHQ, Conduktor Console and CMAK), Confluent Control Center for Confluent Platform, Lenses with one agent per cluster, the single-cluster consoles (Redpanda Console and Kafdrop) that you deploy once per cluster, desktop clients such as Offset Explorer, and the operational tooling that runs per cluster (Cruise Control and the Strimzi operator).
At a glance
Twelve options are scored here on this page's five weighted criteria, 70 points in all. The rubric is weighted: Per-cluster access control counts three times, and Mixed distributions, Deployment shape, Cross-cluster views and Cost at N clusters count once. The five listed first, of twelve, each out of 70: Kpow 59, which takes its best score on Per-cluster access control (10 out of 10) and its lowest on Cost at N clusters (6 out of 10), Price: From $4,500 per cluster a year, 100 users; AKHQ 56, Licence: Apache 2.0, free; Kafbat UI 55, Licence: Apache 2.0, free; Lenses 41; Confluent Control Center 35, Licence: Part of Confluent Platform.
Why teams end up with many clusters
Most organisations do not plan to run dozens of Kafka clusters. They get there one reasonable decision at a time: a cluster per environment, then per region, then per team or per governance domain. When Chad Harris was asked in a webinar Q&A how a large engineering team avoids too many clusters, his answer was that GitOps and cloud vendors have made new clusters very easy to create, so he has seen organisations scale prematurely, with every team or even every service getting its own cluster. Kafka is designed to be multi-tenant, highly scalable shared infrastructure, and a single well-run cluster handles a very large number of topics, partitions and messages.
Splitting by governance domain is the pattern he recommends against, because domains change: two that were separate merge, or one splits, and the cluster layout cannot follow without a migration. Better governance and audit controls inside a cluster, meaning RBAC and multi-tenancy, solve that problem without adding clusters. Kafka cluster management covers the sizing and isolation decisions that come before tool selection.
Even so, five or ten clusters is normal and sensible, and some organisations run far more. One customer told Factor House they had around 75 clusters across all their environments. Derek Troy-West, Factor House’s co-founder and CEO, has described Kpow installations with 60 or 70 different network-connected things hanging off them: multiple clusters, ksqlDB and the rest. At that point the tool you manage them with shapes how much of your week goes on switching between consoles.
Less clusters rather than more clusters is better. I'd rather see one cluster than 100, but I'd also probably rather see five or 10 in that case.
Chad Harris, Solutions Architect at Factor House
What to judge a multi-cluster tool on
Five criteria decide whether a tool actually manages many clusters or just lists them. Every option is scored against them in this order.
Mixed distributions from one install. Real fleets mix self-managed Apache Kafka, Amazon MSK, Confluent Cloud or Platform, and Kafka-compatible brokers such as Redpanda. A tool that only manages one vendor’s distribution means a second tool for everything else. The test is whether the tool’s own docs show connection examples for the distributions you run.
One deployment or one per cluster. Some tools run once and connect to every cluster, others are deployed once per cluster and give you one URL per cluster, and neither shape is automatically better. A single deployment still has to sit close to the clusters it manages, and Kpow’s own docs warn that “multi-cluster does not mean multi-region” and ask you to install Kpow in proximity to your Kafka resources. A related question comes up when separate teams want separate views of the same cluster. Factor House had exactly that request from a payments company that wanted one Kpow instance for its platform team and another for its operations teams. Chad Harris’s answer was that this is what tenancy is for: one instance, with each group seeing only its own resources. Extra instances against one cluster are possible in Kpow, but only in a persistence mode that keeps metrics in memory, so a restart loses the last hour of history.
Per-cluster access control. Production and development are different risks. The tool should let you grant a team write access in dev and read-only access in production, from one policy, tied to your identity provider. The Kafka RBAC tools and Kafka SSO tools comparisons go deeper on each half of that, and regulated teams will want Kafka governance tools for financial services.
Cross-cluster views. A single screen that shows the health of every cluster, and moving between clusters without logging in again, is the minimum. Searching or comparing across clusters in one action is rarer, and worth checking for specifically rather than assuming.
Cost of the tool itself at N clusters. Licensing models differ more than features do: per cluster, per seat, free with paid RBAC, or custom quotes above a threshold. Work out the price at the cluster count you will have in two years, not the one you have now. At 75 clusters, a per-cluster price and a per-seat price diverge a long way in either direction depending on team size.
The options, compared
Every cell comes from the tool’s own documentation, source or pricing page. “Not documented” means it does not appear in the tool’s own material.
| Rank | Tool | Mixed distributions | Deployment shape | Per-cluster access control | Cross-cluster views | Cost at N clusters | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kpow | Self-managed Kafka, MSK, Confluent Cloud and Platform, Redpanda, Aiven, Instaclustr and others, from one install | One instance manages up to twelve clusters, installed near the clusters. The licence covers as many clusters as it permits | RBAC per cluster and resource, plus tenancy, with SSO (Enterprise) | Cluster switcher and per-cluster resources, Connect, schema registries and ksqlDB alongside. Cross-cluster search is not documented | Per cluster, from $4,500 a year with 100 users. Free Community Edition up to three clusters | Kpow multi-cluster docs |
| 2 | AKHQ | Named connections, with Confluent Cloud and MSK IAM examples in its docs | One install, many connections | Free, groups scoped by cluster regex | Central multi-cluster view | Free, Apache 2.0 | AKHQ connection docs |
| 3 | Kafbat UI | Self-managed Kafka, MSK, Azure Event Hubs and Google Cloud, with cloud IAM. Many clusters per install | One install, many clusters | Free RBAC, each role scoped to named clusters | One interface across clusters | Free, Apache 2.0 | Kafbat UI features |
| 4 | Lenses | Any Kafka-compatible provider, per its docs | One HQ, one agent per cluster | Commercial RBAC | HQ across environments | Team Edition from $4,000 a year for a single cluster, multi-cluster by custom quote | Lenses docs and pricing page (text only) |
| 5 | Confluent Control Center | Documented for Confluent Platform versions only | One install, additional clusters by config | Confluent Platform RBAC | Multiple Confluent Platform clusters | Part of Confluent Platform licensing | Confluent docs: Control Center (text only) |
| 6 | CMAK | Old Kafka versions, ZooKeeper-based | One install, many clusters | LDAP basic auth and global feature flags, nothing per cluster | Cluster list | Free, last updated in 2023 | CMAK repository |
| 7 | Strimzi | Clusters it runs on Kubernetes | One operator, one cluster per watched namespace | Kubernetes RBAC | Kubernetes resources, not a console | Free, Apache 2.0 | Strimzi deployment guide |
| 8 | Offset Explorer | Saved connections to any cluster | Desktop app on each user’s machine | None for teams | Its connection list | Free for personal use only, licensed otherwise | Offset Explorer features |
| 9 | Redpanda Console | Configured with one broker list | One deployment per cluster, inferred from its config | RBAC needs an enterprise licence | None across clusters | Free community edition, paid RBAC | Redpanda docs: Console configuration (text only) |
| 10 | Kafdrop | One broker connection per instance | One deployment per cluster | None documented | None | Free, Apache 2.0 | Kafdrop repository |
| 11 | Cruise Control | Any Apache Kafka cluster | One instance per cluster, inferred from its config | Not a user-facing console | None, it balances one cluster | Free, Apache 2.0 | Cruise Control repository |
| 12 | Conduktor Console | Documented connections for Confluent Cloud, Aiven, MSK and Cloudera | One install, many clusters | Permissions per cluster or across all clusters | One console across clusters | Free tier up to 50 users and three clusters. Team Edition priced per seat with unlimited clusters | Conduktor docs and pricing page (text only) |
Here is how the scores work out. For zero licence cost across many clusters, Kafbat UI and AKHQ win, and both include per-cluster RBAC for free, which Kpow does not: Kpow’s RBAC is an Enterprise feature. For mixed distributions from one install, Kpow, Kafbat UI, Conduktor, AKHQ and Lenses all document broad provider support, and Control Center documents Confluent Platform only. For deployment shape, Kpow documents a limit of twelve clusters per instance, while Kafbat UI, AKHQ and Conduktor document no per-install limit. For cost at scale, per-cluster pricing (Kpow) is cheaper than per-seat pricing (Conduktor’s Team Edition) for large teams on few clusters, and the reverse holds for small teams on many clusters. On cross-cluster search in one action, none of the tools here documents it, Kpow included.
Rank 1 Kpow
59 out of 70 Total
Try Kpow in the live demo No signup needed.
- Clusters per instance
- Up to twelve, via _2, _3 suffixes
- Governance
- RBAC, tenancy and SSO: Enterprise
- Price
- From $4,500 per cluster a year, 100 users
- Mixed distributions
- 9 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 7 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 10 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 7 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 6 out of 10
Why these scores for Kpow
- Mixed distributions 9 out of 10
- This page’s table and card give the longest documented list on the page (self-managed, MSK, Confluent Cloud and Platform, Redpanda, Aiven, Instaclustr, Google Cloud, Bufstream) from one install.
- Deployment shape 7 out of 10
- One instance manages up to twelve clusters and must sit near them, and the summary has Kafbat UI, AKHQ and Conduktor documenting no per-install limit, so all three score higher.
- Per-cluster access control 10 out of 10
- It gives RBAC policies by cluster and resource pattern, tenancy and SSO, and this card says “It leads on governance across a mixed fleet from one install”. All Enterprise, which the cost score carries.
- Cross-cluster views 7 out of 10
- Cluster switcher with each cluster’s Connect, schema registries and ksqlDB alongside; cross-cluster search in one action not documented, “Kpow included”.
- Cost at N clusters 6 out of 10
- It is per cluster from $4,500 a year with 100 users, with Community Edition free to three clusters, and the summary has Kafbat UI and AKHQ winning on cost and including per-cluster RBAC free, “which Kpow does not”.
What it is. Factor House’s management UI and API for Kafka, deployed as a single container or JAR.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Kpow’s compatibility list covers self-managed Kafka, Amazon MSK, Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform, Redpanda, Aiven, Instaclustr, Google Cloud’s managed Kafka and Bufstream. One instance manages up to twelve clusters, configured by repeating the connection settings with _2, _3 suffixes, and each cluster can carry its own Connect clusters, schema registries and ksqlDB instances. The first cluster holds Kpow’s internal topics. Kpow’s docs ask you to install it close to the clusters, since multi-cluster is not multi-region.
Access control and cross-cluster views. RBAC policies target resources by cluster, so a role can edit topics in one cluster and only read in another, and tenants restrict which clusters, topics, groups, Connect clusters and registries a role sees at all. RBAC, tenancy and SSO are Enterprise features. Search or comparison across clusters in one action is not documented.
Cost at N clusters. Priced per cluster, not per seat: Enterprise from $4,500 per cluster per year with 100 users included, and Community Edition free for up to three clusters and ten users.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It leads on governance across a mixed fleet from one install. It costs money per cluster where Kafbat UI and AKHQ cost nothing, and a single instance tops out at twelve clusters.
Source. Kpow multi-cluster management, Kpow RBAC and Kpow multi-tenancy.
Staying patched. Kpow’s release notes name the CVEs each release remediates, and the 96.4 image built on 5 August 2026 bundles 311 dependencies of which one carries a high or critical advisory, none of them published before that release. That is not a claim to patch faster than a community project: Kpow’s own dependency remediation has run from 14 to 128 days, and the current image still ships CVE-2026-75595 in netty, a 9.1 critical public since 19 August 2026, unpatched. What a licence buys here is not a different deployment model, because Kpow is self-hosted too. It is a company contracted to ship the fix. Every dependency figure on this page was read on 24 September 2026 from the published artefacts and from nvd.nist.gov.
Compare Kpow vs AKHQKpow vs Kafbat UIKpow vs Confluent Control CenterKpow vs Lenses.ioKpow vs Redpanda ConsoleKpow vs CMAKKpow vs KafdropKpow vs Offset Explorer
Rank 2 AKHQ
56 out of 70 Total
- Licence
- Apache 2.0, free
- Access
- Groups scoped by cluster regex
- Documented examples
- Confluent Cloud, MSK IAM
- Mixed distributions
- 7 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 8 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 8 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 7 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 10 out of 10
Why these scores for AKHQ
- Mixed distributions 7 out of 10
- Named connections with Confluent Cloud and MSK IAM examples in its docs; summary counts it among broad provider support, with a shorter list than Kpow or Conduktor.
- Deployment shape 8 out of 10
- This page’s table gives one install with many connections, and the summary finds no documented per-install limit.
- Per-cluster access control 8 out of 10
- Free group access to clusters matching a list of regular expressions; no tenancy or staged approvals, per the card.
- Cross-cluster views 7 out of 10
- Homepage describes a central multi-cluster view, the rubric’s minimum; no cross-cluster search documented.
- Cost at N clusters 10 out of 10
- The summary has it winning on zero licence cost, with per-cluster RBAC free.
What it is. An open source web UI for Apache Kafka under Apache 2.0.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Each cluster is a named connection, and its docs include a Confluent Cloud example and an MSK IAM authentication page.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Groups grant access to clusters matching a list of regular expressions. Its homepage describes a central multi-cluster view.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is free with per-cluster access control, and the same note as Kafbat UI applies on tenancy and staged approvals.
Source. AKHQ connection docs and AKHQ groups.
Staying patched. AKHQ has no CVE filed against its own code, and that is the wrong number to plan against. Release 0.28.0, cut on 6 August 2026, bundles 270 libraries and 18 of them carry a high or critical advisory. Sixteen were already public, with fixed versions already on Maven Central, on the day it shipped, and five are netty advisories Kpow had remediated three weeks earlier in 96.2: CVE-2026-44249, CVE-2026-45416, CVE-2026-45674, CVE-2026-47691 and CVE-2026-50010. The oldest has been open 108 days. That is exposure and remediation latency rather than a working attack, and every figure resolves against the published jar and nvd.nist.gov. Four releases in two years, and no security policy at any path GitHub reads.
Compare Kpow vs AKHQAKHQ vs Kafbat UIAKHQ vs Confluent Control CenterAKHQ review
Rank 3 Kafbat UI
55 out of 70 Total
- Licence
- Apache 2.0, free
- RBAC
- Free, each role lists its clusters
- Confluent Cloud
- Broke in v1.4.x and v1.5.0
- Mixed distributions
- 6 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 8 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 8 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 7 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 10 out of 10
Why these scores for Kafbat UI
- Mixed distributions 6 out of 10
- Its documentation covers self-managed Kafka, MSK, Azure Event Hubs and Google Cloud with cloud IAM, but Confluent Cloud connectivity broke in v1.4.x and v1.5.0.
- Deployment shape 8 out of 10
- This page’s table gives one install across many clusters, and the summary finds no documented per-install limit, unlike Kpow’s twelve.
- Per-cluster access control 8 out of 10
- It gives free RBAC with every role scoped to named clusters, a clean pass, and this card records no equivalent of Kpow’s tenancy or staged approvals.
- Cross-cluster views 7 out of 10
- This page’s table gives one interface across clusters, which is the rubric’s minimum, and no cross-cluster search is documented.
- Cost at N clusters 10 out of 10
- The summary says “For zero licence cost across many clusters, Kafbat UI and AKHQ win”, with per-cluster RBAC included free.
What it is. An open source web UI for Apache Kafka under Apache 2.0.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Its features page describes managing all your Kafka clusters “in one unified interface”, with each cluster configured by indexed properties. Its documentation covers self-managed Kafka and managed services including Amazon MSK, Azure Event Hubs and Google Cloud, with cloud IAM integration. Confluent Cloud connectivity broke in v1.4.x and v1.5.0 and works on v1.3.0, per the Kafbat UI review.
Access control and cross-cluster views. RBAC is free, and every role lists the clusters it applies to.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It beats Kpow on price and includes per-cluster RBAC at no cost. Its docs describe no equivalent of Kpow’s tenancy or staged approvals.
Source. Kafbat UI features and Kafbat UI RBAC.
Staying patched. Kafbat UI released v1.5.0 in April 2026 and has not shipped since. In the 157 days since, at least 20 high or critical advisories have been published against libraries that release bundles, including the same netty critical CVE-2026-75595 that the current Kpow image carries. Only 150 of its 266 bundled jars resolved to a Maven coordinate, so that count is a floor and the state of the release itself is unmeasured. Kafbat does publish a security policy, which AKHQ and Kafdrop do not, and the one CVE filed against its own code, CVE-2025-49127, was already fixed in the release that preceded the advisory. Six releases in two years.
Compare Kpow vs Kafbat UIAKHQ vs Kafbat UIConduktor vs Kafbat UIKafbat UI review
Rank 4 Lenses
lenses.io
41 out of 70 Total
- Architecture
- One HQ, one agent per cluster
- Team Edition
- From $4,000 a year, single cluster
- Multi-cluster
- Enterprise, custom pricing
- Mixed distributions
- 7 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 6 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 6 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 7 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 3 out of 10
Why these scores for Lenses
- Mixed distributions 7 out of 10
- Its documentation says it connects to any provider exposing a Kafka-compatible API, and this page’s summary counts it among broad provider support.
- Deployment shape 6 out of 10
- One HQ plus one agent for every cluster, so the agent count grows with the fleet.
- Per-cluster access control 6 out of 10
- Commercial RBAC; the page does not describe per-cluster scoping.
- Cross-cluster views 7 out of 10
- HQ is the view across environments, the rubric’s minimum; no cross-cluster search documented.
- Cost at N clusters 3 out of 10
- This card records that “multi-cluster pricing is not published”, and Team Edition covers a single cluster only.
What it is. A commercial Kafka management product with a central HQ and agents.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Its docs say one agent connects to one Kafka cluster, and that it can connect to any provider exposing a Kafka-compatible API.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Commercial RBAC, with HQ as the view across environments.
Cost at N clusters. Its pricing page lists Team Edition from $4,000 a year for teams on a single cluster, and multi-Kafka Enterprise at custom pricing.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It has a clear central-plus-agent architecture, but multi-cluster pricing is not published.
Source. Lenses documentation: Connecting Lenses to your environment, and the Lenses pricing page.
Compare Kpow vs Lenses.ioAKHQ vs LensesConduktor vs LensesLenses review
Confluent Control Center
confluent.io
35 out of 70 Total
- Scope
- Confluent Platform clusters only
- Adds clusters
- Per-cluster bootstrap settings
- Licence
- Part of Confluent Platform
- Mixed distributions
- 2 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 6 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 6 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 6 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 3 out of 10
Why these scores for Confluent Control Center
- Mixed distributions 2 out of 10
- Compatibility is listed only with Confluent Platform versions, and the summary says “Control Center documents Confluent Platform only”, with no MSK or Redpanda.
- Deployment shape 6 out of 10
- One install, more clusters added by config; Reduced infrastructure mode gives no metrics or monitoring data.
- Per-cluster access control 6 out of 10
- Confluent Platform RBAC across the clusters it is configured for; the page gives no per-cluster policy detail.
- Cross-cluster views 6 out of 10
- Shows multiple Confluent Platform clusters, and only those.
- Cost at N clusters 3 out of 10
- Cost is inside Confluent Platform licensing, with no figure on the page.
What it is. Confluent Platform’s management and monitoring UI.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Its documentation describes it as a tool for Kafka “in Confluent Platform”, adds more clusters through per-cluster bootstrap settings, and lists compatibility only with Confluent Platform versions. In Reduced infrastructure mode it provides no metrics or monitoring data.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Confluent Platform RBAC, across the Confluent Platform clusters it is configured for.
Cost at N clusters. Part of Confluent Platform licensing.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is the natural choice on an all-Confluent Platform fleet, and its documentation does not cover MSK, Redpanda or other distributions.
Source. Confluent documentation: Control Center overview, configuration and system requirements.
Compare Kpow vs Confluent Control CenterAKHQ vs Confluent Control CenterConduktor vs Confluent Control CenterConfluent Control Center review
Rank 6 Strimzi
30 out of 70 Total
- Type
- Kubernetes operator
- Layout
- One Kafka cluster per watched namespace
- Covers
- Clusters it runs, not MSK or Confluent Cloud
- Mixed distributions
- 2 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 5 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 4 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 2 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 9 out of 10
Why these scores for Strimzi
- Mixed distributions 2 out of 10
- Covers only clusters it runs on Kubernetes, “not MSK or Confluent Cloud”.
- Deployment shape 5 out of 10
- One operator manages several clusters across namespaces, one cluster per watched namespace.
- Per-cluster access control 4 out of 10
- Kubernetes RBAC on the custom resources, an indirect form of per-cluster control.
- Cross-cluster views 2 out of 10
- Kubernetes resources, not a console.
- Cost at N clusters 9 out of 10
- Free under Apache 2.0.
What it is. The Kubernetes operator for running Kafka.
Mixed distributions and deployment. It manages multiple Kafka clusters across namespaces, and its deployment guide says each watched namespace should contain only one Kafka cluster.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Kubernetes RBAC on the custom resources. It is not a console.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is the standard for clusters you run on Kubernetes and covers only those, not MSK or Confluent Cloud.
Source. Strimzi deployment guide.
Staying patched. Strimzi is community-maintained under the CNCF and it answers the patching question better than most vendors do. Thirty-eight releases in two years, six published CVEs, each with a coordinated-disclosure advisory, and on the last three batches the fixed release shipped the same day the advisory was published: 0.49.1 in December 2025, 0.50.1 in February 2026 and 1.0.1 in June 2026. Open source is not the risk here. The absence of a contract is, and Strimzi shows how little that has cost so far.
26 out of 70 Total
- Kafka versions
- 0.8 to 0.11, per its README
- State
- Kept in ZooKeeper
- Last updated
- 2023
- Mixed distributions
- 1 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 6 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 2 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 4 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 9 out of 10
Why these scores for CMAK
- Mixed distributions 1 out of 10
- The README lists Kafka 0.8 to 0.11 and it keeps its state in ZooKeeper, which this page calls “not a fit for current Kafka versions”.
- Deployment shape 6 out of 10
- One install manages multiple clusters, but through ZooKeeper, which current Kafka no longer runs.
- Per-cluster access control 2 out of 10
- LDAP basic auth and global feature flags only, with no per-cluster granularity.
- Cross-cluster views 4 out of 10
- This page’s table gives a cluster list and nothing beyond it.
- Cost at N clusters 9 out of 10
- Free, though the repository was last updated in 2023.
What it is. The open source cluster manager formerly known as Kafka Manager.
Mixed distributions and deployment. One install manages multiple clusters, but its README lists Kafka 0.8 to 0.11 and it keeps its own state in ZooKeeper. The repository was last updated in 2023.
Access control and cross-cluster views. LDAP basic authentication and coarse feature flags that apply globally, with no per-user, per-cluster or per-topic granularity. The cluster list is its only cross-cluster view.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It was an early multi-cluster manager and is not a fit for current Kafka versions.
Source. CMAK repository.
Staying patched. CMAK’s last release is from April 2022 and nothing has been committed to it since August 2023. It bundles ZooKeeper 3.5.7, carrying an authorization bypass scoring 9.1 that has been public since October 2023, 1,079 days, alongside logback 1.2.3, jackson-databind 2.10.0 and netty 4.1.45. Only 109 of its 112 bundled jars resolved to a coordinate, so its counts are a floor. There is no release coming to carry a fix, so every advisory against its dependency tree is the operator’s to patch or to accept.
Compare Kpow vs CMAKAKHQ vs CMAKCMAK vs Kafbat UICMAK review
Rank 8 Redpanda Console
redpanda.com
20 out of 70 Total
- Licence
- Business Source License
- Deployment
- One per cluster, one broker list
- RBAC
- Enterprise licence
- Mixed distributions
- 2 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 2 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 3 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 0 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 7 out of 10
Why these scores for Redpanda Console
- Mixed distributions 2 out of 10
- Configured with a single broker list, so one install never spans distributions.
- Deployment shape 2 out of 10
- It is one deployment per cluster, and this card puts it as “ten clusters means ten consoles”.
- Per-cluster access control 3 out of 10
- RBAC needs an enterprise licence, and with one console per cluster there is no single policy across them.
- Cross-cluster views 0 out of 10
- This page’s table and card give no cross-cluster view.
- Cost at N clusters 7 out of 10
- Free community edition with RBAC paid; no licence cost to add a console, but one to run per cluster.
What it is. Redpanda’s web console, under the Business Source License.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Configured with a single broker list, so one deployment per cluster in practice.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Its authorization docs say the feature requires an enterprise licence. No cross-cluster view.
Cost at N clusters. Free community edition, with RBAC paid.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is simple for one cluster, and ten clusters means ten consoles.
Source. Redpanda documentation: Console configuration and authorization.
Compare Kpow vs Redpanda ConsoleKafbat UI vs Redpanda ConsoleConduktor vs Redpanda ConsoleRedpanda Console review
Rank 9 Offset Explorer
16 out of 70 Total
- Type
- Desktop Kafka client
- Connections
- Any number, saved per user
- Licence
- Free for personal use only
- Mixed distributions
- 6 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 3 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 0 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 3 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 4 out of 10
Why these scores for Offset Explorer
- Mixed distributions 6 out of 10
- Saved connections to any cluster, but on one user’s machine rather than one shared install.
- Deployment shape 3 out of 10
- A desktop app on each user’s machine, so a team runs as many copies as it has engineers.
- Per-cluster access control 0 out of 10
- This card records no shared access model, since each user runs their own copy.
- Cross-cluster views 3 out of 10
- Its connection list, one user at a time.
- Cost at N clusters 4 out of 10
- Free for personal use only, a licence for any commercial use; the page gives no price.
What it is. A desktop Kafka client.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Saved connections to any number of clusters, on each user’s own machine.
Access control and cross-cluster views. No shared access model, since each user runs their own copy.
Cost at N clusters. Its site says it is free for personal use only and needs a licence for any commercial use.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is handy for one engineer and offers nothing shared for a team.
Source. Offset Explorer features and Offset Explorer home page.
Compare Kpow vs Offset ExplorerAKHQ vs Offset ExplorerKafbat UI vs Offset ExplorerKafka Tool download
13 out of 70 Total
- Licence
- Apache 2.0, free
- Deployment
- One instance per broker connection
- Access control
- None documented
- Mixed distributions
- 2 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 2 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 0 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 0 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 9 out of 10
Why these scores for Kafdrop
- Mixed distributions 2 out of 10
- One broker connection per instance, so no mix of distributions from one install.
- Deployment shape 2 out of 10
- It is one deployment per cluster, and this card puts it as “does not manage several”.
- Per-cluster access control 0 out of 10
- This page’s table and card document none.
- Cross-cluster views 0 out of 10
- This page’s table gives none.
- Cost at N clusters 9 out of 10
- Free under Apache 2.0; the cost at N clusters is N deployments, not licences.
What it is. An open source Kafka web UI.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Each instance takes one broker connection, so one deployment per cluster.
Access control and cross-cluster views. None documented.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It is quick to stand up for one cluster and does not manage several.
Source. Kafdrop repository.
Staying patched. Kafdrop released 4.3.0 on 31 August 2026 bundling Tomcat 11.0.22, which had carried three critical advisories since 25 August, six days earlier. One of them, CVE-2026-65905, scores 9.8 and is an authentication bypass, and all three are still in the current release. Only 66 of its 118 bundled jars resolved to a coordinate, so those counts are a floor rather than a total. Three releases in two years, 106 of its last 132 commits from a dependency bot, and no security policy at any path GitHub reads.
Compare Kpow vs KafdropAKHQ vs KafdropKafbat UI vs KafdropKafdrop review
Cruise Control
13 out of 70 Total
- Type
- Partition rebalancing service
- Scope
- Bootstrap servers of one cluster
- Role
- Complements a console
- Mixed distributions
- 2 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 2 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 0 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 0 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 9 out of 10
Why these scores for Cruise Control
- Mixed distributions 2 out of 10
- Works with any Apache Kafka cluster, but each instance is configured for one.
- Deployment shape 2 out of 10
- One instance per cluster, from its own config.
- Per-cluster access control 0 out of 10
- Not a user-facing console, so no access model for people.
- Cross-cluster views 0 out of 10
- This page’s table gives none, because it balances one cluster.
- Cost at N clusters 9 out of 10
- Free under Apache 2.0.
What it is. An open source cluster balancing service, originally from LinkedIn.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Configured with the bootstrap servers of the one cluster it monitors, so one instance per cluster.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Not a user-facing console, and no cross-cluster view.
Cost at N clusters. Free.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It does partition rebalancing that the consoles here do not. It complements a multi-cluster console rather than replacing one.
Source. Cruise Control repository.
Staying patched. Cruise Control is Apache-2.0 and actively maintained: twelve releases in two years, a published security policy, and no CVE filed against its own code. The gap to plan for is cadence rather than disclosure. It went 209 days between November 2025 and May 2026, and a fix to a bundled library reaches you only when the next release carries it, because nobody is contracted to cut one for you.
Rank 12 Conduktor Console
conduktor.io
53 out of 70 Total
- Free tier
- 50 users and three clusters
- Team Edition
- Per seat, unlimited clusters
- Documented providers
- Confluent Cloud, Aiven, MSK, Cloudera
- Mixed distributions
- 8 out of 10
- Deployment shape
- 8 out of 10
- Per-cluster access control ×3 weight, this criterion counts 3 times toward the total
- 8 out of 10
- Cross-cluster views
- 7 out of 10
- Cost at N clusters
- 6 out of 10
Why these scores for Conduktor Console
- Mixed distributions 8 out of 10
- Cluster configuration docs have sections for Confluent Cloud, Aiven, Amazon MSK and Cloudera, four named providers.
- Deployment shape 8 out of 10
- This page’s table gives one install across many clusters, and the summary finds no documented per-install limit.
- Per-cluster access control 8 out of 10
- The Conduktor RBAC documentation has permissions that “can be applied on one specific cluster, or all your clusters”.
- Cross-cluster views 7 out of 10
- This page’s table gives one console across clusters, and no cross-cluster search is documented.
- Cost at N clusters 6 out of 10
- It is free to 50 users and three clusters, then per seat with unlimited clusters, and the summary has it cheaper than per-cluster for small teams on many clusters and dearer for large teams.
What it is. A commercial Kafka console with a free Community Edition.
Mixed distributions and deployment. Its cluster configuration docs have sections for Confluent Cloud, Aiven, Amazon MSK and Cloudera clusters.
Access control and cross-cluster views. Its RBAC docs say permissions “can be applied on one specific cluster, or all your clusters”.
Cost at N clusters. The Community Edition covers up to 50 users and three clusters. Its pricing page lists Team Edition per seat with unlimited clusters.
Where it wins and where it falls short. It combines broad provider support with cluster-scoped permissions, and its per-seat pricing grows with the team rather than the fleet.
Source. Conduktor documentation: Configure clusters, Set up RBAC, Console Community Edition, and its pricing page.
Compare Conduktor vs Kafbat UIConduktor vs Confluent Control CenterConduktor vs LensesConduktor review
How Factor House approaches it
Kpow’s multi-cluster management is built on the view that fewer, well-governed clusters beat many ungoverned ones, and that the tool should make a shared cluster safe to share. One Kpow instance connects to up to twelve clusters of any mix of distributions, each with its own Connect clusters, schema registries and ksqlDB instances, and the cluster switcher moves between them in the same UI. RBAC policies are written against cluster and resource patterns, so one YAML file can give a team write access in development and read-only access in production. Tenancy then decides which clusters and resources each role sees at all, which is how one instance serves several teams without them seeing each other’s topics (Kpow docs, multi-tenancy).
Pricing follows the clusters rather than the people: per cluster, with 100 users included. For monitoring the clusters themselves, the signals worth watching at the fleet level are in Kafka broker monitoring.
The test worth running in a Kpow demo is switching between clusters of different distributions in one UI, then writing one RBAC policy that allows edits in one cluster and read-only access in another.
Kpow live demo
Manage several clusters from one Kpow
Open the Kpow demo to see how one Kpow instance presents several Kafka clusters, and what switching between them looks like.
Built for platform and data engineers running Kafka in production.
Try the Kpow demoFAQ
How do I manage multiple Kafka clusters?
Run one management tool that connects to every cluster, with per-cluster access control, and keep cluster-level configuration in version control. Kpow, Kafbat UI, AKHQ and Conduktor each manage many clusters from one install. Before adding a cluster, check whether RBAC and multi-tenancy on an existing one would do the job.
Can one Kafka UI manage MSK, Confluent Cloud and self-managed clusters together?
Yes. Kpow’s compatibility list and AKHQ’s and Conduktor’s connection docs all cover Confluent Cloud and MSK alongside self-managed Kafka. Confluent Control Center documents Confluent Platform only.
How many Kafka clusters can Kpow manage?
Kpow’s docs say one instance can manage up to twelve clusters, and that Kpow will manage as many clusters as your licence permits, with more memory and CPU as the count grows. Community Edition is free for up to three clusters.
What is the best free tool for multiple Kafka clusters?
Kafbat UI and AKHQ are free, manage many clusters from one install, and include per-cluster RBAC. Kpow Community Edition is free for up to three clusters.
The rest of the operational picture is in the complete Kafka guide.
How these tools were scored
Every option is scored from 0 to 10 on each criterion, from the evidence and sources this page cites, and the reason for each score is on its card. The criteria are weighted: Mixed distributions counts once, Deployment shape counts once, Per-cluster access control counts three times, Cross-cluster views counts once and Cost at N clusters counts once, for a total out of 70. Per-cluster access control counts three times here, because the moment one console reaches many clusters the question stops being what you can see and becomes which cluster each person may touch. Mixed distributions, deployment shape, cross-cluster views and cost at N clusters count once. This page is published by Factor House, which makes Kpow. Every option is scored on the same rubric and the same sources: Kpow's per-criterion scores are set the same way as every other option's and are not adjusted, and the weights apply to every option alike. Kpow ranks first on its total of 59 out of 70. The other options follow by total. Conduktor Console is listed last whatever its total; on its total of 53 it would place fourth.