3 categories · RankedApache Kafka
Apache Kafka is an open source event streaming platform · apache.org ↗
Read the same way at every company size.
The standing depends on who is buying. Every model is asked the same questions for each company size.
Confluent Cloud is first at 28%.
Confluent Cloud is first at 47%. 1 of 14 models made it the first choice when asked directly.
Confluent Cloud is first at 66%.
Why models recommend it
“Apache Kafka (self-managed or open-source) is generally the best event streaming platform for a company with a limited budget.”Grok 4.20 · Budget-constrained question · first choice
“The open-source standard for durable, replayable event streams... You want control, portability, and a widely used foundation”GPT-6 Luna · Comparative question · first choice
“Apache Kafka (The Industry Standard) ... Choose Kafka if you need the most mature ecosystem, highest throughput ceiling”Kimi K2 · Comparative question · first choice
“Apache Kafka is usually the best choice if you have engineering capacity: the software is free and open source”Perplexity Sonar · Budget-constrained question · first choice
What gives them pause
“Avoid Self-Hosting Kafka: The total cost of ownership (TCO) of engineer hours spent troubleshooting Kafka brokers... far exceeds the cost of a managed vendor.”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Direct question · warning
“avoid complex streaming systems (like Kafka)”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Budget-constrained question · warning
“Why cautious/avoid: Extremely high operational complexity—requires deep expertise in clustering, KRaft mode, tuning, monitoring, scaling, and disaster recovery.”Grok 4.20 · Negative question · warning
“Caution Due to Operational Complexity: Apache Kafka (and Confluent)... You shouldn't necessarily "avoid" it, but you must be extremely cautious.”Qwen 3.7 Flash · Negative question · warning
Also on the shortlist
The products named in the same answers as Apache Kafka, over the 163 answers that named it, and how often each was the first choice instead.
| Product | Named together | Picked instead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 102 | 30 | Compare → | |
| 100 | 7 | Compare → | |
| 98 | 18 | Compare → | |
| 82 | 6 | Compare → | |
| 81 | 1 | View → | |
| 78 | 2 | View → | |
| 51 | 3 | Compare → | |
| 38 | 3 | View → | |
| 32 | 5 | Compare → | |
| 23 | 0 | Compare → |
What the models named instead of Apache Kafka →
A side-by-side page exists where both products are among a category's top eight.
How this is measured
Fourteen AI models from 12 labs are asked the same buying questions six ways, for three company sizes. Standings refresh every edition.
Gane sells AI visibility software. No company can pay to change a result.
Read the method →Sources returned with these answers
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted. These counts come from 130 of the 163 answers that named Apache Kafka and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
266 of the 289 domain citations in answers naming Apache Kafka came from a third party's page. Twenty-three were to the publisher's own pages (the Gane Index), which the models cite like any other source; they are not counted as a third party.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Grok 4.20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
What it publishes
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| News or press | 1,081 | 12 | 2026-09-03 | ||
| Blog | 228 | 1 | 2026-07-01 | ||
| Template or tool | 38 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 14 | undated | |||
| Conference or event | 10 | 0 | 2026-06-09 | ||
| Glossary or explainer | 9 | undated | |||
| Case study | 2 | undated | |||
| Webinar or virtual event | 2 | undated |
Most recent
- 2026-09-03Security scanning at foundation scale news or press
- 2026-09-02Asf plus one newsletter august 2026 news or press
- 2026-09-01The apache software foundation advances open source infrastructure and celebrates community growth in fy26 news or press
- 2026-09-01The apache software foundation announces keynote speakers for community over code glasgow 2026 news or press
- 2026-08-27The apache software foundation announces new top level projects 6 news or press
- 2026-08-18Apache geode 2 0 part iii lessons learned and the path forward news or press
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page apache.org exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.