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Apache Kafka VS TiDB

Compare Apache Kafka VS TiDB and see what are their differences

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Apache Kafka logo Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka is an open-source message broker project developed by the Apache Software Foundation written in Scala.

TiDB logo TiDB

A distributed NewSQL database compatible with MySQL protocol
  • Apache Kafka Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-01
  • TiDB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26

Apache Kafka features and specs

  • High Throughput
    Kafka is capable of handling thousands of messages per second due to its distributed architecture, making it suitable for applications that require high throughput.
  • Scalability
    Kafka can easily scale horizontally by adding more brokers to a cluster, making it highly scalable to serve increased loads.
  • Fault Tolerance
    Kafka has built-in replication, ensuring that data is replicated across multiple brokers, providing fault tolerance and high availability.
  • Durability
    Kafka ensures data durability by writing data to disk, which can be replicated to other nodes, ensuring data is not lost even if a broker fails.
  • Real-time Processing
    Kafka supports real-time data streaming, enabling applications to process and react to data as it arrives.
  • Decoupling of Systems
    Kafka acts as a buffer and decouples the production and consumption of messages, allowing independent scaling and management of producers and consumers.
  • Wide Ecosystem
    The Kafka ecosystem includes various tools and connectors such as Kafka Streams, Kafka Connect, and KSQL, which enrich the functionality of Kafka.
  • Strong Community Support
    Kafka has strong community support and extensive documentation, making it easier for developers to find help and resources.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Kafka

  • Complex Setup and Management
    Kafka's distributed nature can make initial setup and ongoing management complex, requiring expert knowledge and significant administrative effort.
  • Operational Overhead
    Running Kafka clusters involves additional operational overhead, including hardware provisioning, monitoring, tuning, and scaling.
  • Latency Sensitivity
    Despite its high throughput, Kafka may experience increased latency in certain scenarios, especially when configured for high durability and consistency.
  • Learning Curve
    The concepts and architecture of Kafka can be difficult for new users to grasp, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Hardware Intensive
    Kafka's performance characteristics often require dedicated and powerful hardware, which can be costly to procure and maintain.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing Kafka's dependencies and ensuring compatibility between versions of Kafka, Zookeeper, and other ecosystem tools can be challenging.
  • Limited Support for Small Messages
    Kafka is optimized for large throughput and can be inefficient for applications that require handling a lot of small messages, where overhead can become significant.
  • Operational Complexity for Small Teams
    Smaller teams might find the operational complexity and maintenance burden of Kafka difficult to manage without a dedicated operations or DevOps team.

TiDB features and specs

  • Scalability
    TiDB offers horizontal scalability, allowing you to add more nodes to handle increased loads seamlessly. This makes it suitable for applications expected to grow rapidly.
  • MySQL Compatibility
    TiDB is highly compatible with MySQL, enabling easy migration from MySQL databases and allowing developers to use familiar MySQL tools and syntax.
  • Distributed Architecture
    TiDB's distributed architecture allows it to maintain high availability and reliability, with the ability to continue operating even if some nodes fail.
  • HTAP Capabilities
    TiDB supports Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing (HTAP), which lets users perform real-time analytical queries on fresh transactional data without needing separate systems.
  • Strong Consistency
    TiDB ensures strong consistency across distributed transactions, maintaining data integrity without sacrificing performance.

Possible disadvantages of TiDB

  • Complex Deployment
    TiDB's distributed nature can make deployment and management more complex compared to traditional single-node databases, requiring specialized knowledge.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running a TiDB cluster can be resource-intensive, requiring more hardware resources compared to monolithic databases for optimal performance.
  • Evolving Ecosystem
    As a relatively new system, TiDB's surrounding ecosystem is still evolving, potentially leading to a lack of comprehensive ecosystem tools and third-party integrations.
  • Operational Overheads
    Maintaining and monitoring a TiDB cluster can introduce additional operational overheads due to its numerous components and dependencies.
  • Learning Curve
    For teams accustomed to traditional databases, there may be a steep learning curve when adopting TiDB, especially in understanding its distributed features and best practices.

Apache Kafka videos

Apache Kafka Tutorial | What is Apache Kafka? | Kafka Tutorial for Beginners | Edureka

More videos:

  • Review - Apache Kafka - Getting Started - Kafka Multi-node Cluster - Review Properties
  • Review - 4. Apache Kafka Fundamentals | Confluent Fundamentals for Apache Kafka®
  • Review - Apache Kafka in 6 minutes
  • Review - Apache Kafka Explained (Comprehensive Overview)
  • Review - 2. Motivations and Customer Use Cases | Apache Kafka Fundamentals

TiDB videos

Hands-On TiDB - Episode 1: A Brief Introduction to TiDB

More videos:

  • Review - TiDB Contributor 学习之路
  • Tutorial - TiDB Binlog Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Kafka and TiDB)
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
Databases
54 54%
46% 46
Data Integration
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 Kafka and TiDB

Apache Kafka Reviews

Best ETL Tools: A Curated List
Debezium is an open-source Change Data Capture (CDC) tool that originated from RedHat. It leverages Apache Kafka and Kafka Connect to enable real-time data replication from databases. Debezium was partly inspired by Martin Kleppmann’s "Turning the Database Inside Out" concept, which emphasized the power of the CDC for modern data pipelines.
Source: estuary.dev
Best message queue for cloud-native apps
If you take the time to sort out the history of message queues, you will find a very interesting phenomenon. Most of the currently popular message queues were born around 2010. For example, Apache Kafka was born at LinkedIn in 2010, Derek Collison developed Nats in 2010, and Apache Pulsar was born at Yahoo in 2012. What is the reason for this?
Source: docs.vanus.ai
Are Free, Open-Source Message Queues Right For You?
Apache Kafka is a highly scalable and robust messaging queue system designed by LinkedIn and donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It's ideal for real-time data streaming and processing, providing high throughput for publishing and subscribing to records or messages. Kafka is typically used in scenarios that require real-time analytics and monitoring, IoT applications,...
Source: blog.iron.io
10 Best Open Source ETL Tools for Data Integration
It is difficult to anticipate the exact demand for open-source tools in 2023 because it depends on various factors and emerging trends. However, open-source solutions such as Kubernetes for container orchestration, TensorFlow for machine learning, Apache Kafka for real-time data streaming, and Prometheus for monitoring and observability are expected to grow in prominence in...
Source: testsigma.com
11 Best FREE Open-Source ETL Tools in 2024
Apache Kafka is an Open-Source Data Streaming Tool written in Scala and Java. It publishes and subscribes to a stream of records in a fault-tolerant manner and provides a unified, high-throughput, and low-latency platform to manage data.
Source: hevodata.com

TiDB Reviews

20+ MongoDB Alternatives You Should Know About
TiDB is another take on MySQL compatible sharding. This NewSQL engine is MySQL wire protocol compatible but underneath is a distributed database designed from the ground up.
Source: www.percona.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Kafka should be more popular than TiDB. It has been mentiond 144 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 Kafka mentions (144)

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TiDB mentions (17)

  • TiDB – cloud-native, distributed SQL database written in Go
    I do want to clarify a few points, on the project page it does provide the following information: > Distributed Transactions: TiDB uses a two-phase commit protocol to ensure ACID compliance, providing strong consistency. Transactions span multiple nodes, and TiDB's distributed nature ensures data correctness even in the presence of network partitions or node failures. > … > High Availability: Built-in Raft... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • TiDB – cloud-native, distributed SQL database written in Go
    Note that TiDB did subject itself to Jepsen testing (relatively) early. Here's their 2019 results: https://jepsen.io/analyses/tidb-2.1.7 The devil is in the details, and anyone who is looking to implement TiDB for data correctness should read through not just this but other currently-open correctness-related Github issues: e.g., https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20correctness. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • A MySQL compatible database engine written in pure Go
    Tidb has been around for a while, it is distributed, written in Go and Rust, and MySQL compatible. https://github.com/pingcap/tidb. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2023)
    PingCAP | https://www.pingcap.com | Database Engineer, Product Manager, Developer Advocate and more | Remote in California | Full-time We work on a MySQL compatible distributed database called TiDB https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Apache Pegasus – A a distributed key-value storage system
    Isn't TiDB built on top of TiKV?[0] [0]: https://github.com/pingcap/tidb. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Kafka and TiDB, you can also consider the following products

RabbitMQ - RabbitMQ is an open source message broker software.

MySQL - The world's most popular open source database

StatCounter - StatCounter is a simple but powerful real-time web analytics service that helps you track, analyse and understand your visitors so you can make good decisions to become more successful online.

OceanBase - Unlimited scalable distributed database for data intensive transaction & real-time operational analytics workload, with ultra fast performance of maintaining the world record of both TPC-C and TPC-H benchmark tests.

Histats - Start tracking your visitors in 1 minute!

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