What is the difference between Apache kafka vs ActiveMQ

apache-kafka activemq
Boxer Robert picture Boxer Robert · Jun 28, 2017 · Viewed 66.9k times · Source

I am working on Apache Kafka. I want to know which one is better: Kafka or ActiveMQ. What is the main difference between this two technologies? I want to implement Kafka in Spring MVC.

Answer

Chris Lam picture Chris Lam · Jun 28, 2017

Kafka and ActiveMQ may have some overlaps but they were originally designed for different purposes. So comparing them is just like comparing an Apple and an Orange.

Kafka

Kafka is a distributed streaming platform with very good horizontal scaling capability. It allows applications to process and re-process streamed data on disk. Due to it's high throughput it's commonly used for real-time data streaming.

ActiveMQ

ActiveMQ is a general-purpose message broker that supports several messaging protocols such as AMQP, STOMP, MQTT. It supports more complicated message routing patterns as well as the Enterprise Integration Patterns. In general it is mainly used for integration between applications/services especially in a Service Oriented Architecture.

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