Edeka Logo
Finalto Logo

+ Trusted by 500+ enterprises globally

Confluent Is Now Part of IBM:
What It Means for Your Roadmap

Roadmap &
Pricing Questions

Any acquisition can change a product’s roadmap, pricing, and support priorities over time, and those decisions now rest with IBM. If that uncertainty matters to your team, it’s a reasonable factor to weigh when evaluating alternatives to Confluent.

Architecture &
Cost Considerations

Confluent is built on Kafka’s log-based design, which delivers full topic streams to each consumer, so consumers filter client-side and teams manage partitioning as topic counts grow — work that can add cost at scale. Solace’s broker-side filtering and predictable pricing are designed to reduce that overhead.

Solace vs
Confluent

Solace is focused exclusively on real-time event streaming — one mission, one platform, one team. For organizations that value an independent, single-focus vendor, that’s a meaningful difference when weighing a Confluent alternative.

Talk to a Solace Expert →

What’s Holding Your Confluent Deployment Back?

Confluent Pricing at Scale

The Confluent Challenge

Per-partition and per-connector pricing can compound as usage grows. When many consumers read the same topic but use only part of the data, you can pay repeatedly to move bytes that aren’t acted on.

Impact

  • Operating costs can rise as usage grows
  • Schema Registry and connector licensing can add line items
  • Partition management can require added engineering effort as topic counts grow

The Solace Advantage

Predictable pricing. Broker-side filtering and push-based delivery mean consumers only receive events they need — no per-partition multiplier, no per-connector surprise.

Improvement Metric

Lower total cost of ownership in comparable deployments.

Lock-In Across Your Enterprise Stack

The Confluent Challenge

Confluent’s proprietary connectors and Schema Registry can create dependencies that influence the rest of your enterprise stack.

Impact

  • Potential pressure to consolidate around a single vendor over time
  • Reduced flexibility with cloud, observability, and tooling choices
  • Strategic flexibility can narrow over time

The Solace Advantage

Vendor-neutral by design. Solace treats every cloud, protocol, and ancillary technology as a first-class citizen. Your stack stays yours.

Improvement Metric

Zero proprietary connector dependencies. Runs identically on AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem, and edge.

Managed Kafka with Proprietary Dependencies

The Confluent Challenge

Managed Kafka that also relies on proprietary components — Schema Registry, ksqlDB, premium connectors — alongside open-source Kafka. /p>

Impact

  • Open-source Kafka work can become tied to Confluent-specific features over time
  • Migration costs can grow over time
  • Open-source flexibility can narrow toward a single vendor

The Solace Advantage

Kafka-compatible without the lock-in. Solace runs alongside existing Kafka clusters via the Kafka Bridge — keep what works, reroute what doesn’t. Let Solace move the data, let Kafka remember.

Improvement Metric

Coexists with existing Kafka without rip-and-replace.

Limited Native Support for Agentic AI

The Confluent Challenge

Confluent’s topic and partition model is costly to reshape at runtime, so the many fine-grained, short-lived subscriptions of agentic AI workloads tend to drive topic sprawl and frequent consumer-group rebalancing.

Impact

  • Repartitioning can slow AI iteration
  • Agents may act on stale or partial data
  • Custom orchestration can consume engineering capacity

The Solace Advantage

Native Agent Mesh. Wildcard topic hierarchies handle dynamic AI subscriptions natively — agents subscribe at the broker, receive filtered events instantly, and tear down cleanly. /p>

Improvement Metric

Real-time fan-out to large numbers of dynamic subscribers.

Fan-Out Compute Overhead

The Confluent Challenge

Confluent filters on the client side rather than at the broker, so each consumer typically receives the full topic stream and discards what it doesn’t need.

Impact

  • A significant share of fan-out traffic can be data that’s discarded
  • Compute, network egress, and engineering costs can scale with that overhead
  • Cloud costs can grow faster than the value delivered

The Solace Advantage

Broker-side filtering. Topic wildcards mean consumers receive only the events that match their subscription — the wasted bytes are never sent.

Improvement Metric

Meaningfully less consumer-side compute on fan-out workloads.

Connecting Beyond Kafka Requires Adapters

The Confluent Challenge

Confluent uses the Kafka protocol, so MQTT, AMQP, JMS, and REST typically each need a separate connector or translation layer.

Impact

  • Additional connectors to license, monitor, and maintain
  • Added latency on each protocol hop
  • IoT, mobile, and legacy systems can sit outside the stream

The Solace Advantage

Native multi-protocol broker. The same event reaches a JMS consumer, an MQTT device, and an HTTP webhook without translation.

Improvement Metric

6+ protocols natively; zero translation middleware.

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Streaming Complexity

The Confluent Challenge

Cluster linking and cross-region replication in Confluent can be operationally complex and resource-intensive.

Impact

  • Added operational effort to keep replication healthy
  • Outage exposure if links lag or fail
  • Edge and on-prem sites can be harder to integrate

The Solace Advantage

Dynamic event mesh. Events route across cloud, on-prem, and edge from a single control plane — self-healing topology, no replica lag to chase.

Improvement Metric

One mesh spans every environment, with new regions added quickly.

Book a Personalized Demo

Why Enterprises Choose Solace Over Confluent

Kafka was built for appending logs. Confluent added a connector layer to enable streaming. Solace was built for moving data in real-time — and has added an integration layer to enable streaming. That architecture more closely matches the needs of 2026: efficient RAG pipelines, agentic AI, and operational real-time data.

And it’s all part of a proven platform with best-in-class support.
One platform, built by one team — focused entirely on real-time event streaming.

Event-Driven Architecture

Queue-based event mesh delivers efficiency that’s hard to achieve with a log-based structure.

Icon Price

Lower TCO

Predictable pricing, broker-side filtering, and push-based delivery reduce compute waste.

Solace Platfrom for Agentic AI

Built for Agentic AI

Dynamic wildcard subscriptions let AI agents subscribe to precise events in real time — without repartitioning. Native Agent Mesh orchestration.

Multi-Protocol

Connect legacy, cloud, and IoT without adapters thanks to support for AMQP, JMS, Kafka, MQTT, REST, and WebSocket.

Any Environment

Every cloud and technology treated as a first-class citizen — no proprietary lock-in. Cloud, hybrid, on-prem, edge — one platform.

Solace vs Confluent: Side-by-Side Comparison

FeaturesSolaceConfluent
Architecture Event-driven, Queue-based, event mesh Log-based, distributed Kafka
Delivery Model True real-time publish/subscribe Pull-based delivery
Broker-Side Filtering
  • Yes — reduces fan-out compute overhead
  • Client-side filtering only
Dynamic AI Subscriptions
  • Wildcard topic hierarchy, real-time
  • Requires repartitioning
Kafka Compatibility
  • Kafka bridge — zero code changes
  • Native Kafka
Schema RegistryYesYes
Pricing ModelSimple, predictable, lower production costsPer-partition + per-connector
Multi-ProtocolMQTT, AMQP, JMS, REST, WebSocket, KafkaKafka only (adapters required)
Hybrid / Multi-Cloud
  • Event mesh, dynamic routing
  • Cluster linking required
Agentic AI
  • Built-in agent development lifecycle platform
  • Custom build required
Support ModelBest-in-class, single product focusIBM enterprise support model
TCO (3-year)Lower (varies by workload)Varies; may require specialist staffing
OwnershipIndependent, 100% EDA-focusedPart of IBM

Most mature enterprises will run both — Kafka for replay and cold-archive domains, and Solace as the operational routing layer and AI-integration bus.

Book a Personalised Demo

How Solace Compares to Other Confluent Alternatives

There are many alternatives to Confluent — from self-hosted Apache Kafka to Redpanda, Amazon MSK, and Aiven. Most replace the managed Kafka layer. Only Solace replaces the entire middleware strategy.

Self-Hosted Apache Kafka

Full control, high operational burden.

Solace reduces partition sprawl and operational overhead with an integrated, enterprise-grade platform.

Other Managed Kafka: Amazon MSK, Azure Event Hubs, Aiven

Cloud-native Kafka replacements, good for single-cloud workloads.

Solace delivers true multi-cloud, multi-protocol event mesh without cloud lock-in.

Red Panda logo

Redpanda

Kafka-compatible drop-in, lightweight.

Solace goes further: multi-protocol, agentic AI, event mesh, enterprise support, and a proven migration track record.

Why Solace Wins for Enterprise-Grade Confluent Displacement?

Flexible options to meet the precise requirements of your use case — while comprehensive enough to future-proof your enterprise.

2026 State of Real-Time Data: Agentic Enterprises Are Running on Real-Time Data

2026 IDC STUDY

Picking a streaming platform?

IDC ranked real-time data connectivity the #1 barrier to scaling AI agents, ahead of model quality and cost.

Get the Report

Recognized for Driving the Future of Real-time Data

ISC research - Real-Time dataISC research - Data IntelligenceEcovadis - SolaceSoftware Innovation, Solace 2025

Customers Benefiting from Unified
Management of APIs and Events

Danone

"Danone was on its industry 5.0 journey and needed someone who understood our needs, can help us long term, and shares our vision — someone like Solace."


Learn More

Bosch

Leverages Solace Platform for master data distribution across complex manufacturing ecosystems, bridging IT/OT stacks for real-time visibility and control.

Learn More

EDEKA

Major German supermarket chain deploys an event mesh spanning head office to handheld in-store devices, with edge brokers enabling fault tolerance and dynamic message routing.

Learn More

Finalto

Global liquidity provider in capital markets replaced legacy messaging infrastructure with Solace to handle ever-increasing market data volume with best-in-class low-latency delivery.

Learn More

Switching from Confluent to Solace Is Easier Than You Think

Moving major middleware is high-risk and high-cost — we know. That’s why Solace has a proven process, a decoupled architecture that supports transformation, and services and partners to help you effect it with low risk.

  1. Assess

    Map your Confluent topics, connectors, Schema Registry usage, and IBM lock-in exposure.

  2. Connect

    Solace’s Kafka-compatible bridge connects existing producers and consumers without code changes. Your Kafka investments don’t disappear — they get a role that fits their architecture.

  3. Expand

    Progressively unlock multi-protocol, agentic AI, wildcard subscriptions, and event mesh across hybrid/multi-cloud environments.

Interactive Product Tour

See Solace in Action

Click through the Solace Platform at your own pace.
See how broker-side filtering, dynamic subscriptions, and the event mesh work in practice, and how they compare to what you’re running on Confluent today.


Book a Personalized Demo

Related Resources

Blog Post

How to make agentic AI adaptive with dynamic event streams

Context is king for getting good AI results, so letting agents dynamically adjust real-time data access will be key part of AI future.

Learn more
Blog Post

Automating airline operations with Solace and RisingWave

In this blog post, I demonstrate how integrating Solace and RisingWave enables real-time event-driven architecture in the aviation industry.

Learn more
Blog Post

MQTT broker edge platform: the gold standard in manufacturing automation

To meet Industry 4.0 requirements, manufacturers must leverage advanced technologies and make a shift to event-driven architecture.

Learn more
Blog Post

OFGEM MHHS for integration architects

Learn how Solace helps energy companies with event-driven systems and time-critical information for the MHHS settlement initiative.

Learn more
White Paper

Comparing Solace and Kafka

This paper compares Apache Kafka and Solace Platform to help architects and developers understand where each shines.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions About Confluent Alternatives

With Confluent now owned by IBM, some teams are reassessing roadmap direction and pricing as those decisions move under IBM. Solace is a leading independent alternative — with a proven track record and a platform focused entirely on real-time event-driven architecture (EDA). Evaluating alternatives early gives teams time to plan ahead of renewal decisions.

Confluent’s per-partition and per-connector pricing can compound at scale, and fan-out costs grow when many consumers read the same topic but use only part of the data. Solace’s broker-side filtering and push-based delivery are designed to reduce that overhead, which can lower total cost of ownership over time.

Confluent is a managed Kafka service built on a log-based architecture — optimized for data pipelines with a pull-based delivery model. Solace is an event mesh built for real-time data movement, with native multi-protocol support, dynamic AI subscriptions, and broker-side filtering. Where Confluent centers on the Kafka and IBM ecosystem, Solace is designed to connect across many technologies.

No. Solace’s Kafka-compatible bridge means existing producers and consumers connect without code changes. Most mature enterprises run both — Kafka for replay and cold-archive domains, Solace as the operational routing layer and AI-integration bus — and consolidate over time.

Yes. Solace Cloud is fully managed on AWS, Azure, and GCP. Unlike Confluent Cloud, Solace also supports on-premises and hybrid event mesh deployments from the same platform — giving you flexibility without forcing a cloud-only commitment.

For pure Kafka log pipelines, Confluent is capable. For enterprise-grade real-time data movement across multiple protocols, hybrid clouds, IoT, and agentic AI — with proven deployment in global financial markets and large-scale IoT networks — Solace is often the stronger strategic platform.

Ready to Explore the Best Confluent Alternative?

Book a Consultation