Aiven for Apache Kafka Reviews & Product Details

What distinguishes aiven from other database providers is it's super quick to get a cluster up and running, followed by a generous 300$ coupon so you can tinker around and utilise the platform wholeheartedly. It also gives an option to run upto 25 clusters, so even in a free plan you could power your 25 side projects for free, which the other providers restrict to just one. I sincerely love their service and would continue to be a user for them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think perhaps they could optimize their cluster closing time. Tho fast, I wish it'd be quicker. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Aiven for Kafka because I wanted a 'vanilla' Kafka installation that was supported and maintained by others. This avoids the overhead of operating it myself but also ensures we have a native Kafka deployment, without the overhead of adopting a more elaborate binary-compatible platform for features we are unlikely to require, and at great cost.

Aiven for Kafka was simple to set up and establish within our infrastructure, and comes with a range of extensibility options that ensures we are able to grow our offering in future (for example, built-in support for Kafka Connect and schema registry are bonuses we may want to use in future). I am especially pleased with the real-time dashboard updates in Aiven's console and the ability to manipulate services via Terraform, as this enables Aiven to plug into our existing cloud operations architecture easily.

Aiven's costs for its services are transparent, which is appreciated in a world of used car salesman 'talk to us for pricing' models which add friction to the purchasing process of otherwise commodity services.

The service is well documented and does what it says on the tin, so there has been no need to speak with support at any time during its operation; it just works. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some capabilities are missing or clunky, especially on configuration management and security. A key feature I wish Aiven for Kafka supported is the ability to authenticate via mTLS using our own root of trust, as this would enable the Aiven for Kafka service to be embedded with our existing service mesh mechanism (a feature I have relied upon in past self-hosted deployments). At present, we must distribute login details to each consumer of the service, which adds frustrating amounts of overhead in generating, distributing and managing the lifecycle of secret material.

Additionally, the ability to embed Kafka into our existing control-loop based declarative workflow for setting up users, topics and ACLs would be appreciated, i.e. by allowing easier adoption of Kubernetes-based operators for declaring these resources. There are third-party solutions but they require customisation or are not intended for use in this model, which makes them tricky to adopt.

More generally, the Aiven Terraform provider would benefit from some significant overhaul to make resource names more consistent and improve the documentation around certain behaviours. The Aiven team appears to be in the process of migrating abstractions within the provider around 'organization' objects, with old and new abstractions present and it not being clear that one has been deprecated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The website makes it easy to create and test different configurations. I also had an occation to use support and they where very responsive and helped me resolve my questions quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For lower, not production envirments I would like to be able to create smaller configurations to cost optimize. Especially in development where one engineer maybe using the brokers for small tests. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We used mongo and kafka managed services from Aiven. Things are quick. Ochestration has done with in few clicks. No need to worry about monitoring and all everything is self-managed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Data transfer charges between cloud accounts are a thing to worry. Need to check it further Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The services are straight forward to configure, theres a lot of documentation which helps one resolve doubts, however if this is not enough one can reach customer support to ask for guidance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There are two features missing which i found relevant they are governance tools and the Pay-as-you-use pricing model. I think that implementing these 2 things will create a more valuable product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Convenience and ease of use would strike me as the striking feature. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Too expensive for me especially if you are an up and coming business, can not compete with rivals Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Aiven Kafka services offer a plethora of advantages that significantly elevate the efficiency and reliability of data streaming and processing. In my opinion, the primary benefit is the ease of scalability. With Aiven Kafka, I can effortlessly scale their clusters to handle varying workloads and accommodate growing data volumes. This eliminates the need for manual intervention and ensures seamless performance even during periods of increased demand. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Less control over the configuration and tuning of the Kafka cluster. If your use case requires fine-grained control over Kafka settings, a managed service might not be the best fit Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ease of use and speed of configurating. Customer Support is also great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

So far, nothing stands out as a clear negative. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- Fully managed

- Fully featured

- Transparent cost

- Takes little more than a few minutes to get up and running

- Great customer support

- Easy to integrate other toolings Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- Smaller community

- Less known than Confluent Kafka Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Managed services like Aiven often provide a simplified setup and configuration process, making it easier for users to deploy and manage Apache Kafka clusters without the need for extensive expertise.

Aiven typically takes care of the underlying infrastructure, handling tasks such as maintenance, scaling, and security updates. This allows users to focus more on their applications and less on managing the Kafka infrastructure. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some users may prefer more control and customization over their Kafka clusters, and a managed service may limit certain configuration options compared to a self-managed setup. Evaluate whether the level of control provided by Aiven aligns with your specific requirements. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.