Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

RisingWave VS Apache Flink

Compare RisingWave VS Apache Flink and see what are their differences

RisingWave logo RisingWave

RisingWave is a stream processing platform that utilizes SQL to enhance data analysis, offering improved insights on real-time data.

Apache Flink logo Apache Flink

Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.
  • RisingWave Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-29
  • Apache Flink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

RisingWave features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

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.

RisingWave videos

RisingWave: Reinventing(?!) Stream Processing in the Cloud Era (Yingjun Wu)

More videos:

  • Review - Building Cost Effective Stream Processing Applications with RisingWave and Pulsar
  • Review - RISINGWAVE REBOOT

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to RisingWave and Apache Flink)
Databases
31 31%
69% 69
Big Data
10 10%
90% 90
Stream Processing
16 16%
84% 84
SQL
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Flink should be more popular than RisingWave. It has been mentiond 40 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.

RisingWave mentions (13)

  • Every Database Will Support Iceberg — Here's Why
    RisingWave started as a distributed streaming database with a PostgreSQL interface. We wanted to make it easy to process real-time data using standard SQL. But we quickly realized that many teams don’t just want to process streaming data — they want to store it in a way that’s reusable by other tools downstream. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Be Water, Ride the Wave: What Time Taught Me About Building Infra
    This month (April 2025) marks 4 years and 1 month since I started building RisingWave. - Source: dev.to / 12 days ago
  • RisingWave Turns Four: Our Journey Beyond Democratizing Stream Processing
    When we started RisingWave four years ago, we set out with a bold mission: to democratize stream processing (check our original blog here). Back then, building real-time streaming applications felt like climbing a mountain. It required specialized infrastructure, deep engineering know-how, and a hefty operational commitment. Stream processing had incredible potential, but its sheer complexity kept it locked away... - Source: dev.to / 15 days ago
  • Detect Spoofing in Real Time Using Just SQL and Open-Source Tools
    RisingWave is a unified real-time data processing and management platform. It allows users to ingest, process, and query streaming data using familiar SQL. For this demonstration, we'll particularly leverage RisingWave's materialized views, which continuously and incrementally compute results as new data arrives, enabling real-time analysis without constant re-computation. Additionally, its Python SDK simplifies... - Source: dev.to / 15 days ago
  • How to Pitch Your Boss to Adopt Apache Iceberg?
    Real-time pipelines might need RisingWave or Apache Kafka. - Source: dev.to / 22 days ago
View more

Apache Flink mentions (40)

  • 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 / 5 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 / 10 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 / 15 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 / 23 days ago
  • Exploring the Power and Community Behind Apache Flink
    In conclusion, Apache Flink is more than a big data processing tool—it is a thriving ecosystem that exemplifies the power of open source collaboration. From its impressive technical capabilities to its innovative funding model, Apache Flink shows that sustainable software development is possible when community, corporate support, and transparency converge. As industries continue to demand efficient real-time data... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Materialize - A Streaming Database for Real-Time Applications

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

Timeplus - An innovative streaming SQL database and real-time analytics platform. Fast, powerful and intuitive

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

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

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