Axual Reviews and Details

Questions & Answers

1. Who are some of the biggest customers of Axual?

   • Rabobank (Banking, Netherlands): Axual's origin customer; 300+ teams on governed self-service
   • TenneT (Energy, Netherlands/Germany): transmission system operator for the electricity grid
   • Eneco (Energy, Netherlands): energy supplier using real-time data across the organisation
   • Stedin (Energy, Netherlands): electricity and gas distribution grid operator
   • PostNL (Logistics, Netherlands): national postal and parcel services
   • PTSB (Banking, Ireland): reached production in 4 months
   • ASN Bank (Banking, Netherlands): digital transformation on a real-time data platform
   • Logius (Government, Netherlands): digital government services
   • Norsk Helsenett (Healthcare, Norway): national healthcare network infrastructure

2. Why should a person choose Axual over its competitors?

   Over Confluent: Axual has no proprietary core. It runs on open Apache Kafka and Strimzi, so you're never locked in. If you leave, you keep a standard Kafka cluster. Axual is also an independent, Netherlands-based company, and migration from Confluent is free.

   Over AWS MSK and other hyperscalers: Axual offers true European sovereignty. Run it on your own infrastructure with your own encryption keys, or have it managed on Scaleway, a European cloud, so your supplier, support and data all stay within Europe. That matters for organisations bound by DORA, NIS2 and GDPR.

   Over DIY Kafka: Open-source Kafka works for a few teams, but governance becomes the bottleneck as adoption grows. Axual adds self-service, multi-tenancy, data-owner approvals and audit trails on top of the same Kafka, without the 20–24 months it can take to build that in-house. Already on Strimzi? Keep it and add Axual on top.

   Proven in regulated environments: Trusted by Rabobank (300+ teams on governed self-service), TenneT, PostNL and Logius, with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certification.

3. What's the story behind Axual?

   Axual began in 2015 inside Rabobank, when the Dutch bank set out to become a real-time bank. It had chosen Apache Kafka, but needed more around it: governance, access control, and a way for hundreds of teams to work with streaming data without waiting on a central team. Founder Jeroen van Disseldorp and a small team in Utrecht built that layer, and it remains Axual's core focus today.

   From those beginnings, Axual has grown into an independent, privately held European company with 50+ Kafka and streaming experts from 20+ nationalities. It is still headquartered in Utrecht, with its staff, systems and shareholders all based in the EU.

   Today, the same platform supports retail banking, electricity grid operations, postal logistics, government services and national healthcare infrastructure across Europe, for organisations including Rabobank, Eneco, TenneT, Stedin, PostNL, PTSB, ASN Bank, Logius and Norsk Helsenett.

   Leadership

   • Bert van Elburg, CEO
   • Jeroen van Disseldorp, CTO and Founder
   • Frenk Ochse, COO

   Company facts

   • Founded: 2015, Utrecht, the Netherlands
   • Ownership: Independent, privately held (EU shareholders)
   • Team: 50+ people, 20+ nationalities
   • Recognition: Gartner representative vendor for event streaming; ISO 27001 certified; SOC 2 Type II

4. What makes Axual unique?

   • European sovereignty by design: Self-hosted deployments keep data and encryption keys entirely with the customer. The managed service runs on Scaleway, a European cloud provider, so supplier, support and data stay within Europe.
   • Open Kafka, no lock-in: Axual has no proprietary core. It is built on open Apache Kafka and Strimzi, so customers always keep a standard Kafka cluster.
   • Governance and multi-tenancy at scale: Every team gets its own governed space on one shared platform, with data-owner approvals and full audit history built in.
   • Compliance-ready: ISO 27001 certified, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR compliant, with support for DORA and NIS2 obligations.
   • Free migration: Zero-downtime migration from Confluent, Amazon MSK or self-managed Kafka at no cost.
   • Developer and AI tooling: KSML for building streaming pipelines in YAML instead of Java, plus an MCP server that connects AI agents to live data under existing permissions.

5. How would you describe the primary audience of Axual?

   Axual is built for mid-size to large enterprises in regulated European industries, mainly banking and financial services, energy and utilities, healthcare and government, where data sovereignty, compliance and auditability are non-negotiable.

   Key buyers and users:

   • Platform and infrastructure teams who run Kafka for many internal teams and need governance, multi-tenancy and self-service without a ticket queue
   • Enterprise architects and CTOs/CIOs who want event streaming that meets DORA, NIS2 and GDPR requirements without proprietary vendor lock-in
   • Developers building real-time, event-driven applications who want self-service access to topics, schemas and connectors

   Best fit: Organisations already using or scaling Apache Kafka (self-managed, Strimzi, Confluent or AWS MSK) across multiple teams, especially those needing to keep data within Europe.

6. Which are the primary technologies used for building Axual?

   Axual is a commercial platform built on open-source components, with no proprietary protocol or storage format.

   • Apache Kafka: the event streaming engine at the core of the platform
   • Strimzi: the Kubernetes operator for deploying and running Kafka
   • Apicurio: schema registry for managing and versioning message schemas
   • Kubernetes: self-hosted deployments run on the customer's own Kubernetes, on-premises or in their cloud account
   • Kafka Connect: connectors for integrating Kafka with databases, applications and enterprise systems
   • KSML: Axual's open-source tool for defining Kafka Streams applications in YAML, with Python for custom logic, running on GraalVM
   • Model Context Protocol (MCP): the Axual MCP server connects AI assistants and agents to live streaming data under platform governance
   • Docker Compose: for running the full Axual Platform locally (Axual Desktop)
   • Scaleway: European cloud provider hosting Axual's managed service