Kafka vs Storm: Feature Wise Comparison of Kafka & Storm

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Today, in this article, “Apache Kafka vs Storm: Difference Between Storm and Kafka” we will see the complete comparison for both Kafka and Storm. So, let’s start with the brief introduction of Kafka and Storm to understand the comparison well.

Comparison of Kafka Vs Storm

i. What is Kafka

In order to enable communication between Kafka Producers and Kafka Consumers using message-based topics, we use Apache Kafka. It is very fast, scalable and fault-tolerant, publish-subscribe messaging system.

Kafka plays the role of a platform for high-end new generation distributed applications. Moreover, it permits a huge number of permanent or ad-hoc consumers. As a benefit, Kafka is highly resilient to node failures and also offers automatic recovery.

Hence we can say Kafka is the best choice for communication and integration between components of large-scale data system because of this special feature.

ii. What is Storm?

An open source, distributed, reliable, and fault-tolerant system, is Apache Storm. It has several uses, for example, the Extract Transformation Load (ETL) paradigm, real-time analytics, online machine learning, and continuous computation.

It has various components that work together for the purpose of streaming as well as data processing such as Spout and Bolt. On defining both:

  • Spout

A source of the stream is what we call Spout.

  • Bolt

Whereas, Bolt is a component to which, spout passes the data.
Now, let’s start the featurewise Comparison of Kafka Vs Storm.

Apache Kafka vs Storm

Here are some Key Differences Between Apache Kafka vs Storm:

a. Data Security

i. Apache Kafka
Basically, Kafka does not guarantee data loss, or we can say it have the very low guarantee. For Example, for 7 Million message transactions per day, Netflix achieved 0.01% of data loss.

ii. Apache Storm
On comparison with Kafka, Storm guarantees full data security.

b. Data Storage

i. Apache Kafka
Apache Kafka store its data on the local filesystem, such as EXT4 and XFS.
ii. Apache Storm
On the other hand, Storm is just a data processing framework. That says it doesn’t store data it just transfers it from input to Output stream.

c. Real-time messaging system

i. Apache Kafka
Before processing only, Kafka used to store incoming messages.

ii. Apache Storm
However, Storm works on a Real-time messaging system.

d. Processing/ Transforming

i. Apache Kafka
We use Apache Kafka for processing the real-time data.
ii. Apache Storm
Whereas, we use Storm for transforming the data.

e. Data Source

i. Apache Kafka
Basically, Kafka pulls the data from the actual source of data.
ii. Apache Storm
On the other hand, Storm gets the data from Kafka itself regarding further processes.

f. Basic Task

i. Apache Kafka
While it comes to transferring real-time application data from the source application to another, we use Kafka application.
ii. Apache Storm
Well, we use Storm for aggregation as well as computation purpose.

g. Zookeeper Dependency

i. Apache Kafka
While setting up the Kafka, it’s mandatory to have Apache Zookeeper.

ii. Apache Storm
Whereas, we don’t need Zookeeper to make Storm work.

h. Fault-Tolerant

i. Apache Kafka
Due to Zookeeper, Kafka is fault tolerant.
ii. Apache Storm
The storm is capable of auto-restart its daemons itself.

i. Inventor

i. Apache Kafka
Kafka is invented by LinkedIn.
ii. Apache Storm
Whereas, Twitter invented Apache Storm.

j. Language Support

i. Apache Kafka
Basically, Kafka can work with all languages but while it comes to work best, Kafka works best with Java language only.
ii. Apache Storm
Strom supports all the languages.

k. Latency

i. Apache Kafka
Kafka’s Latency depends upon Data Source, which is generally less than 1-2 seconds.
ii. Apache Storm
While it comes to latency, it is Millisecond latency.

l. Stream processing

i. Apache Kafka
Kafka performs Small-Batch Processing.

ii. Apache Storm
While Storm Performs Micro-Batch Processing.
So, this was all in Kafka vs Storm. Hope you like our explanation.

Conclusion: Apache Kafka vs Storm

Hence, we have seen that both Apache Kafka and Storm are independent of each other and also both have some different functions in Hadoop cluster environment.

Apart from all, we can say Apache both are great for performing real-time analytics and also both have great capability in the real-time streaming. Still, if any doubt regarding Kafka vs Storm, ask in the comment tab.

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