Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache Kafka VS Tornado

Compare Apache Kafka VS Tornado 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 Kafka logo Apache Kafka

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

Tornado logo Tornado

A Python web framework and asynchronous networking library, originally developed at FriendFeed
  • Apache Kafka Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-01
  • Tornado Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-29

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.

Tornado features and specs

  • Asynchronous Networking
    Tornado's core is built on non-blocking network I/O, making it suitable for applications that require a high level of concurrency and can benefit from asynchronous networking.
  • WebSockets Support
    Native support for WebSockets allows Tornado to handle real-time web applications, such as live chats or streaming services, more efficiently.
  • Scalability
    Tornado can handle thousands of simultaneous connections, which makes it highly scalable and an excellent choice for applications expecting high traffic volume.
  • Integrated with asyncio
    Tornado is compatible with Python's asyncio library, providing more flexibility in managing asynchronous operations and integration with other modern async Python libraries.
  • Template Engine
    Comes with a built-in template engine, making it easy to build dynamic web pages without needing to integrate additional templating tools.
  • Long-Polling and SSE
    Supports long-polling and Server-Sent Events (SSE), providing more options for real-time data transfer in web applications.

Possible disadvantages of Tornado

  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Requires a good understanding of asynchronous programming and non-blocking I/O, which can be challenging for developers who are accustomed to synchronous paradigms.
  • Smaller Community
    Compared to other frameworks like Django or Flask, Tornado has a smaller community, which may result in fewer resources, tutorials, and third-party plugins.
  • Limited Out-of-the-Box Features
    Tornado is more low-level and does not come with built-in support for many web development features (e.g., authentication, ORM) that are readily available in other frameworks.
  • Performance Overhead
    The performance benefits of Tornado’s asynchronous capabilities are more noticeable in I/O-intensive applications. For CPU-bound tasks, the performance gains may be negligible or require additional libraries for parallel processing.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Older versions of Tornado may have compatibility issues with the latest Python releases or other modern async libraries, necessitating careful version management.
  • Less Beginner-Friendly
    Tornado’s emphasis on low-level control and asynchronous design patterns makes it less beginner-friendly compared to more opinionated, batteries-included frameworks.

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

Tornado videos

Review Honda Tornado 250

More videos:

  • Review - Tevo Tornado 2018 edition review: Big volume, big value
  • Review - The Retro51 Tornado Pen: The Full Nick Shabazz Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Kafka and Tornado)
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
Web And Application Servers
Data Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Application Server
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Apache Kafka and Tornado. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

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

Tornado Reviews

25 Python Frameworks to Master
Tornado is an open-source asynchronous web framework and networking library for building web applications using Python. It was originally developed at FriendFeed, a social media aggregator that was later acquired by Facebook. It’s now widely used in a variety of applications, including web services, real-time analytics, and other high-concurrency applications.
Source: kinsta.com
Exploring 5 Alternatives to Flask in Python for Web Development
Tornado is a scalable web framework in Python that is well-suited for real-time web applications. It provides a non-blocking I/O loop that enables developers to handle thousands of connections at once. Tornado also has support for various third-party plugins and tools that can be easily integrated into the framework. To install Tornado, use the following command:
Source: msalinasc.com
Top 5 Asynchronous Web Frameworks for Python
Tornado has a strong and committed following in the Python community and is used by experienced architects to build highly capable systems. It’s a framework that has long had the answer to the problems of concurrency but perhaps didn’t become mainstream as it doesn’t support the WSGI standard and was too much of a buy-in (remember that the bulk of Python libraries are still...
Source: geekflare.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Kafka seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 142 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 (142)

View more

Tornado mentions (0)

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

What are some alternatives?

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

RabbitMQ - RabbitMQ is an open source message broker software.

Apache Tomcat - An open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies

Apache ActiveMQ - Apache ActiveMQ is an open source messaging and integration patterns server.

LiteSpeed Web Server - LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is a high-performance Apache drop-in replacement.

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.

Microsoft IIS - Internet Information Services is a web server for Microsoft Windows