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CLOUD-NATIVE DATA STREAMING
Data Streaming Turns Data at Rest into Data in Motion
From event-driven architectures to real-time analytics and AI, everything you build starts here.
Data streaming moves high-throughput, low-latency data between systems in real-time. Confluent’s CEO, Jay Kreps, co-created Apache Kafka®—the open source standard for data streaming.
Today, thousands of startups and enterprises trust Confluent instead of managing Kafka. Our cloud-native Kafka engine, KORA autoscales GBps+ workloads 10x faster with 10x lower tail latencies ––and a 99.99% SLA.
Access Events as They Happen
With data streaming, you don’t operate brittle point-to-point pipelines. Instead, every event—like a click, transaction, sensor reading, or database update—is written to a shared append-only log.
Confluent streams data for any use case:
Cluster options
Optimize your resources at the lowest cost, with pay-as-you-go pricing
Cluster linking
Automatically syncs data across global architectures within your private network
Enterprise security
Includes RBAC, encryption in transit and at rest, and BYOK
1800+ certifications
Include SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS Level 1, HIPAA, and FedRAMP Moderate
Decouple Data Producers and Consumers
Any number of data producers can write events to a shared log, and any number of consumers can read those events independently and in parallel. You can add, evolve, recover, and scale producers or consumers—without dependencies.
Confluent integrates your legacy and modern systems:
Client libraries
Deploy a sample client app in minutes using your preferred language
Pre-built connectors
Avoid 3-6 engineering months of designing, building, and testing each connector
Fully managed connectors
Launch in minutes without operational overhead, reducing your total cost of ownership
Custom connectors
Build your own integrations and let us manage the Connect infrastructure
Use High Quality Data Everywhere
Once events are in the stream, they’re organized into logical topics like "orders" or "payments”. Applications, analytics, and AI all access these topics as a shared source of record.
Confluent enriches your data as it’s created—not after its batched:
Stream processing
Filters, transforms, and joins each event in real-time using SQL
Data contracts
Enforce schema and semantic validation before bad data enters the system
Stream catalog
Organizes topics for self-service enrichment and access through a UI or APIs
Tableflow
Represents topics in open table formats such as Apache Iceberg® and Delta Lake
“Confluent offers a complete, end-to-end data streaming platform with all the enterprise-grade capabilities we need to run mission-critical use cases. Over the last two years, we estimate they’ve helped us gain eight or nine months in terms of time-to-market for deploying Apache Kafka.”
“Things like spinning up Kafka clusters and getting prototypes up and running very quickly, Confluent has been really helpful there. Those sort of exercises might take a long time for my team to do if we were doing this on vanilla open source Kafka. With Confluent, we can turn that around very quickly.”
“Confluent Cloud made it possible for us to meet our tight launch deadline with limited resources. With event streaming as a managed service, we had no costly hires to maintain our clusters and no worries about 24x7 reliability.”
“Confluent has become a lynchpin to harness Apache Kafka for improved operational transparency and timely data-driven decisions. We are delighted with the improvements we have seen in the monitoring of our business flows, speeding up lending approvals, and providing better and more timely fraud analytics."
“We started wondering, can we offload all of the management of Kafka—and still get all of the benefits of Kafka? That’s when Confluent came into the picture.”
“We love open source, but at the same time we’re not a startup. We’re a large financial institution that works with world-class organizations, and we need services that make it easier for us to sleep at night. Confluent is very reliable; it’s never down. It has become our backbone.”
"Scaling was the bottleneck in our growth. But, thanks to Confluent, we’ve been able to re-architecture with ease and harness real-time data to create better, more seamless experiences for all."
Deployment Options
Confluent can be deployed across multi-cloud, hybrid, edge, and on-premises environments at a cost less than open-source Kafka and your favorite hyperscaler.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud
Cloud-native service that goes above and beyond Apache Kafka—available on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud across 60+ regions.
Self-managed Confluent Platform
A complete, enterprise-grade distribution of Apache Kafka for workloads in your on-prem and private cloud environments.
Bring Your Own Cloud with WarpStream
A Kafka-compatible, Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) native data streaming service that is zero-access and secure by default.
Cloud-like, Self-managed Confluent Private Cloud
A complete, enterprise-grade, private data streaming service with cloud-native operations for large platform teams with demanding security and compliance needs.
New developers get $400 in credits during their first 30 days—no sales rep required.
Confluent provides everything you need to:
- Build with client libraries for languages like Java and Python, sample code, 150+ pre-built connectors, and a Visual Studio Code extension.
- Learn from on-demand courses, certifications, and a global community of experts.
- Operate with a CLI, IaC support for Terraform and Pulumi, and OpenTelemetry observability.
You can sign up with your cloud marketplace account below, or directly with us.
Confluent Cloud
A fully managed, cloud-native service for Apache Kafka®
Data Streaming With Confluent | FAQS
How does data streaming work on Confluent?
Both Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform are powered by enterprise distributed Kafka rearchitected for cloud-native scalability that is faster, most cost-efficient, and more resilient. Confluent Cloud specifically is powered by Kora, a cloud-native Kafka engine that allows us to pass on significant savings to our customers—including up to 20-90%+ throughput savings with our autoscaling Standard, Enterprise, and Freight clusters.
Who are Confluent’s cloud-native data streaming capabilities for?
Using Confluent for data streaming is a solid choice for any organization that wants to modernize its data architecture, build event-driven applications, leverage real-time data for analytics and AI, and solve data integrity challenges that come with traditional, batch-based ETL.
How is data streaming different from traditional APIs?
Traditional APIs typically use a request-response model, where a client requests data from a server. Data streaming uses a publish-subscribe model, where producers publish events to a shared log, and any number of consumers can access those events independently. This decoupling is fundamental to modern, scalable architectures.
What types of applications benefit from Confluent’s cloud-native data streaming?
A wide range of applications benefit, including applications for streaming analytics, event-driven generative AI, and multi-agent systems. Any application that needs to react to events instantly or needs highly trustworthy data for mission-critical use cases like from fraud detection and cybersecurity can benefit from leveraging cloud-native data streaming on Confluent.
What data formats and integrations are supported on Confluent?
Confluent supports industry-standard data formats like Avro, Protobuf, and JSON Schema through Schema Registry, part of Stream Quality in Stream Governance (Confluent’s fully managed governance suite). This allows users to integrate with hundreds of systems via our portfolio of 120+ pre-built connectors for sources and sinks like databases, data warehouses, and cloud services.
Can I use Confluent’s data streaming platform with my existing Kafka topics?
Yes, Confluent is 100% compatible with Apache Kafka®. Tools like Cluster Linking enable you to create reliable, real-time replicas of your existing Kafka data and metadata in Confluent and can also be used to migrate your Kafka workloads without downtime.
Is Confluent’s data streaming engine secure and scalable?
Yes. Confluent Cloud's cloud-native Kora engine is designed for massive scale and resilience. It can handle GBps+ workloads, scale 10x faster than traditional Kafka, and is backed by a 99.99% uptime SLA. Confluent Platform also runs on a cloud-native distribution of Kafka and provides features for easier self-managed scaling, including Confluent for Kubernetes and Ansible playbooks. For security, Confluent provides enterprise-grade features and holds numerous compliance certifications including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS across deployment options.
How do I get started with streaming data on Confluent?
New users receive $400 in credits to start building immediately. Simply sign up, activate your account, and you’ll be walked through how to launch your first cluster, connect a data source, and use Schema Registry on Confluent Cloud. We also recommend exploring our Demo Center and resources on Confluent Developer as you get started.
Does streaming data on Confluent require Apache Flink® or ksqlDB?
No. While Confluent offers a fully managed service for Apache Flink® for powerful stream processing, it is not required for the core data streaming capability. You can stream data directly from producers to any number of consumers without using an integrated processing layer.