Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache Flink VS Citus Data

Compare Apache Flink VS Citus Data and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Apache Flink logo Apache Flink

Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.

Citus Data logo Citus Data

Worry-free Postgres. Built to scale out, Citus distributes data & queries across nodes so your database can scale and your queries are fast. Available as a database as a service, as enterprise software, & as open source.
  • Apache Flink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03
  • Citus Data Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-08

Apache Flink features and specs

  • Real-time Stream Processing
    Apache Flink is designed for real-time data streaming, offering low-latency processing capabilities that are essential for applications requiring immediate data insights.
  • Event Time Processing
    Flink supports event time processing, which allows it to handle out-of-order events effectively and provide accurate results based on the time events actually occurred rather than when they were processed.
  • State Management
    Flink provides robust state management features, making it easier to maintain and query state across distributed nodes, which is crucial for managing long-running applications.
  • Fault Tolerance
    The framework includes built-in mechanisms for fault tolerance, such as consistent checkpoints and savepoints, ensuring high reliability and data consistency even in the case of failures.
  • Scalability
    Apache Flink is highly scalable, capable of handling both batch and stream processing workloads across a distributed cluster, making it suitable for large-scale data processing tasks.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Flink has a rich set of APIs and integrations with other big data tools, such as Apache Kafka, Apache Hadoop, and Apache Cassandra, enhancing its versatility and ease of integration into existing data pipelines.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Flink

  • Complexity
    Flink’s advanced features and capabilities come with a steep learning curve, making it more challenging to set up and use compared to simpler stream processing frameworks.
  • Resource Intensive
    The framework can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial memory and CPU resources for optimal performance, which might be a concern for smaller setups or cost-sensitive environments.
  • Community Support
    While growing, the community around Apache Flink is not as large or mature as some other big data frameworks like Apache Spark, potentially limiting the availability of community-contributed resources and support.
  • Ecosystem Maturity
    Despite its integrations, the Flink ecosystem is still maturing, and certain tools and plugins may not be as developed or stable as those available for more established frameworks.
  • Operational Overhead
    Running and maintaining a Flink cluster can involve significant operational overhead, including monitoring, scaling, and troubleshooting, which might require a dedicated team or additional expertise.

Citus Data features and specs

  • Scalability
    Citus Data can scale out across multiple nodes, allowing for horizontal scaling of PostgreSQL. This facilitates handling large volumes of data and high traffic loads efficiently.
  • Distributed SQL
    It transforms PostgreSQL into a distributed database, enabling users to run parallel queries across a cluster, which can lead to significant performance improvements.
  • PostgreSQL Extension
    As an extension to PostgreSQL, Citus leverages the reliability, robustness, and the rich ecosystem of PostgreSQL, allowing users to continue using familiar PostgreSQL tools and extensions.
  • High Availability
    Citus Data provides high availability and disaster recovery options, ensuring that systems can remain operational even during failures.
  • Flexible Data Distribution
    Citus allows flexible data distribution methods like sharding, enabling efficient query executions by dividing data across nodes based on application-specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of Citus Data

  • Complexity
    Implementing a distributed system with Citus can add complexity to architecture and maintenance compared to a single-node PostgreSQL setup.
  • Use Case Suitability
    Citus is best suited for real-time analytics and multi-tenant applications but might not be the best choice for all types of workloads, particularly those that do not require distributed processing.
  • Cost
    Running a distributed database may result in higher infrastructure and maintenance costs, especially when scaling out to a large number of nodes.
  • Data Replication Overhead
    Although Citus offers high availability, maintaining replicas across multiple nodes can introduce additional overhead and complexity in data consistency management.
  • Learning Curve
    There might be a learning curve for teams to understand distributed systems' paradigms and best practices, especially if they are familiar only with traditional single-node databases.

Apache Flink videos

GOTO 2019 • Introduction to Stateful Stream Processing with Apache Flink • Robert Metzger

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Apache Flink Tutorial | Flink vs Spark | Real Time Analytics Using Flink | Apache Flink Training
  • Tutorial - How to build a modern stream processor: The science behind Apache Flink - Stefan Richter

Citus Data videos

Scaling Postgres Episode 48 | Microsoft Acquires Citus Data | Split WAL | Maintenance Work Memory

More videos:

  • Review - Scaling a Relational Database for the Cloud age | Citus Data

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Flink and Citus Data)
Big Data
100 100%
0% 0
Databases
65 65%
35% 35
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
Relational Databases
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Apache Flink and Citus Data

Apache Flink Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Flink yet.
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Citus Data Reviews

20+ MongoDB Alternatives You Should Know About
Citus While PostgreSQL is a powerful database, and you can store terabytes of data on a single cluster, at a larger scale you will need sharding. If so, consider the Citus PostgreSQL extension, or the DBaaS offering from the same guys.
Source: www.percona.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Flink seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 41 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache Flink mentions (41)

  • What is Apache Flink? Exploring Its Open Source Business Model, Funding, and Community
    Continuous Learning: Leverage online tutorials from the official Flink website and attend webinars for deeper insights. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • Is RisingWave the Next Apache Flink?
    Apache Flink, known initially as Stratosphere, is a distributed stream processing engine initiated by a group of researchers at TU Berlin. Since its initial release in May 2011, Flink has gained immense popularity in both academia and industry. And it is currently the most well-known streaming system globally (challenge me if you think I got it wrong!). - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Every Database Will Support Iceberg — Here's Why
    Apache Iceberg defines a table format that separates how data is stored from how data is queried. Any engine that implements the Iceberg integration — Spark, Flink, Trino, DuckDB, Snowflake, RisingWave — can read and/or write Iceberg data directly. - Source: dev.to / 21 days ago
  • RisingWave Turns Four: Our Journey Beyond Democratizing Stream Processing
    The last decade saw the rise of open-source frameworks like Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, and Apache Samza. These offered more flexibility but still demanded significant engineering muscle to run effectively at scale. Companies using them often needed specialized stream processing engineers just to manage internal state, tune performance, and handle the day-to-day operational challenges. The barrier to entry... - Source: dev.to / 26 days ago
  • Twitter's 600-Tweet Daily Limit Crisis: Soaring GCP Costs and the Open Source Fix Elon Musk Ignored
    Apache Flink: Flink is a unified streaming and batching platform developed under the Apache Foundation. It provides support for Java API and a SQL interface. Flink boasts a large ecosystem and can seamlessly integrate with various services, including Kafka, Pulsar, HDFS, Iceberg, Hudi, and other systems. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
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Citus Data mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Citus Data yet. Tracking of Citus Data recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Flink and Citus Data, you can also consider the following products

Apache Spark - Apache Spark is an engine for big data processing, with built-in modules for streaming, SQL, machine learning and graph processing.

PostgreSQL - PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

Amazon Kinesis - Amazon Kinesis services make it easy to work with real-time streaming data in the AWS cloud.

ClickHouse - ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database management system that allows generating analytical data reports in real time.

Spring Framework - The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform.

Amazon RDS - Easy to manage relational databases optimized for total cost of ownership.