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Apache Flink VS Hazelcast

Compare Apache Flink VS Hazelcast and see what are their differences

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Apache Flink logo Apache Flink

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

Hazelcast logo Hazelcast

Clustering and highly scalable data distribution platform for Java
  • Apache Flink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03
  • Hazelcast Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-05

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.

Hazelcast features and specs

  • Scalability
    Hazelcast is designed to scale out horizontally with ease by adding more nodes to the cluster, providing better performance and reliability in distributed environments.
  • In-Memory Data Grid
    Hazelcast stores data in-memory, allowing for extremely fast data access and processing times, which is ideal for applications requiring low latency.
  • High Availability
    Hazelcast offers built-in high availability with its data replication and partitioning features, ensuring data is not lost and the system remains operational during node failures.
  • Ease of Use
    Hazelcast provides a simple and intuitive API, making it accessible to developers and quick to integrate with existing applications.
  • Comprehensive Toolset
    Hazelcast offers a wide range of features including caching, messaging, and distributed computing, all in one platform, which simplifies the architecture by reducing the need for multiple tools.

Possible disadvantages of Hazelcast

  • Memory Usage
    Since Hazelcast operates in-memory, it can consume significant amounts of memory, which may be a concern for applications with large datasets.
  • Complexity in Large Deployments
    While Hazelcast offers scalability, managing and configuring a large-scale deployment can become complex and may require experienced personnel.
  • License Cost
    The enterprise version of Hazelcast, which offers additional features and support, comes with a licensing cost that might not fit all budgets.
  • Limited Language Support
    Hazelcast's strongest support is for Java. While it offers clients for other languages, they may not be as robust or feature-complete as the Java client.
  • Network Latency
    In distributed environments, network latency can impact performance, and as Hazelcast relies on network communication for node interactions, this could be a concern in some scenarios.

Analysis of Apache Flink

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Apache Flink is considered a good distributed stream processing framework.

Why this product is good

  • Rich api
    Flink offers a rich set of APIs for various levels of abstraction, catering to different needs of developers.
  • Scalability
    Flink provides excellent horizontal scalability, making it suitable for handling large data streams and high-throughput applications.
  • Fault tolerance
    Flink's checkpointing mechanism ensures fault-tolerance, maintaining data state consistency even after failures.
  • Ease of integration
    Flink integrates well with other big data tools and ecosystems, facilitating broader data architecture designs.
  • Real-time processing
    It excels at processing data in real-time, allowing for immediate insights and action on streaming data.
  • Community and support
    Being a part of the Apache Software Foundation, Flink benefits from a large community and comprehensive documentation.
  • Complex event processing
    It supports complex event processing, which is essential for many real-time applications.

Recommended for

  • real-time analytics
  • stream data processing
  • complex event processing
  • machine learning in streaming applications
  • applications requiring high-throughput and low-latency processing
  • companies looking for robust fault-tolerance in distributed systems

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

Hazelcast videos

Hazelcast Introduction and cluster demo

More videos:

  • Review - Comparing and Benchmarking Data Grids Apache Ignite vs Hazelcast
  • Demo - Hazelcast Cloud Enterprise - Getting Started Demo Video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Flink and Hazelcast)
Big Data
100 100%
0% 0
Databases
61 61%
39% 39
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
NoSQL 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 Hazelcast

Apache Flink Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Flink yet.
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Hazelcast Reviews

HazelCast - Redis Replacement
Hazelcast IMDG provides a Discovery Service Provider Interface (SPI), which allows users to implement custom member discovery mechanisms to deploy Hazelcast IMDG on any platform. Hazelcast® Discovery SPI also allows you to use third-party software like Zookeeper, Eureka, Consul, etcd for implementing custom discovery mechanism.
Source: hazelcast.org

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 / 25 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 / about 1 month 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 â€” can read and/or write Iceberg data directly. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month 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 / about 2 months 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 2 months ago
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Hazelcast mentions (0)

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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Flink and Hazelcast, 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.

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

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

memcached - High-performance, distributed memory object caching system

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

Apache Ignite - high-performance, integrated and distributed in-memory platform for computing and transacting on...