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Confluent Cloud

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Fully managed, cloud-native Apache Kafka service with consumption-based pricing and 120+ connectors.

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  • Deployment Cloud Based
  • Starting price Free
  • Free trial Available
  • Best for Startups, SMEs, Enterprises

What is Confluent Cloud?

Confluent Cloud is a fully managed, cloud-native service for Apache Kafka, built and operated by the original creators of Apache Kafka. It runs on Confluent's proprietary Kora engine and handles cluster provisioning, scaling, patching, and upgrades so teams can stream and process event data in real time without operating Kafka brokers themselves.

The service uses consumption-based pricing across Basic, Standard, Enterprise, and Freight cluster tiers, with a free Basic tier that scales to zero when idle. Confluent Cloud includes more than 120 pre-built connectors, a schema registry, Apache Flink and ksqlDB stream processing, and Cluster Linking for bridging to existing Kafka deployments, plus support for Avro, Protobuf, and JSON Schema formats. Confluent is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Key Features of Confluent Cloud

Confluent Cloud lists 10 documented features, including Fully managed Apache Kafka service built on the proprietary Kora engine, Consumption-based pricing with a serverless Basic tier that scales to zero and 99.99% uptime SLA on Enterprise-tier production clusters. The list below covers what the product does rather than how it is marketed.

  • Fully managed Apache Kafka service built on the proprietary Kora engine
  • Consumption-based pricing with a serverless Basic tier that scales to zero
  • 99.99% uptime SLA on Enterprise-tier production clusters
  • 120+ pre-built connectors to databases, data warehouses, and cloud storage via Confluent Hub
  • Built-in Schema Registry supporting Avro, Protobuf, and JSON Schema
  • Native Apache Flink integration for real-time stream processing
  • ksqlDB support for SQL-based stream processing
  • Cluster Linking for migrating or bridging existing Kafka clusters without downtime
  • Stream governance tools including data lineage, catalog, and audit logs
  • Role-based access control (RBAC) and customer-managed encryption keys on higher tiers

Confluent Cloud Pricing

Confluent Cloud lists 2 plans, starting free and running to $385.

Basic

Free

per month, starting cost

General purpose cluster tier to start small with no risk and get going with test cases; usage is billed per eCKU and per GB on top.

Standard

$385

per month, estimated starting cost

General purpose cluster tier for most production-ready use cases with an extended feature set, multicloud across AWS, Azure and GCP.

Confluent Cloud Specifications

Confluent Cloud is available on web app. It offers an API, has a free trial and has a free plan.

Deployment
  • Cloud Based
Billing cycle
Monthly
Desktop
  • Web App
Languages
  • English
Built for
  • Startups
  • SMEs
  • Enterprises
Support
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Live Support
  • Training
  • Tickets
Integrations
Snowflake, Databricks, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, Salesforce, Apache Flink, ksqlDB, Avro, Protobuf, JSON Schema, 120+ Confluent Hub connectors
Public API
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Free plan
Yes
Runs in browser
No
Customisable
Yes
Website
confluent.io

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Confluent Cloud Comparisons

Side by side comparisons of Confluent Cloud against 3 other Message Oriented Middleware options listed here.

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Confluent Cloud FAQs

Yes, the Basic cluster tier starts at $0 per month, is serverless, and scales to zero when idle; new signups also receive starting credits.

Pricing is consumption-based, measured in elastic Confluent Units (eCKUs), plus charges for data in/out and data stored, varying by cluster tier.

Standard targets general production workloads with a 99.9 to 99.99% SLA and infinite storage, while Enterprise adds private networking, customer-managed encryption keys, audit logs, and support for up to 96,000 partitions.

Yes, Cluster Linking lets you bridge or migrate data from self-managed Apache Kafka clusters without downtime.

Yes, Standard and Enterprise tiers include Apache Flink and ksqlDB for processing data streams with SQL and other APIs.