Redpanda

Redpanda is Kafka without the JVM, without ZooKeeper, and without the operational nightmare. A C++ rewrite that's Kafka API-compatible, so your existing producers and consumers work unchanged. Up to 10x faster with a single binary deployment.

If you need event streaming and have been dreading the Kafka learning curve, Redpanda is the shortcut. Kafka is the standard but demands a team to operate. NATS is lighter and simpler but not Kafka-compatible. RabbitMQ is great for task queues but not event streaming. Confluent Cloud is managed Kafka with enterprise pricing.

Best for teams that need Kafka's capabilities without Kafka's operational burden. The single-binary deployment is a genuine differentiator — one process, no JVM tuning, no ZooKeeper.

The catch: the license changed — the community edition is limited, and the full features require an enterprise license. At extreme scale, Kafka's ecosystem (Connect, Streams) is more mature. And "Kafka-compatible" isn't "Kafka-identical" — edge cases in client behavior exist. Test your specific workload before migrating.