AWS Kinesis vs Kafka: Choosing the Right Streaming Platform

AWS Kinesis and Apache Kafka serve similar streaming needs but differ fundamentally in operational models and cost structures. Kinesis offers managed shards with 1 MB/s write limits per shard, zero infrastructure management, and native AWS integrations (S3, Lambda, Redshift). Kafka provides higher throughput potential (30,000+ messages/sec per partition), fine-grained control, and broader ecosystem support, but requires operational expertise for cluster management. At moderate scale (<100 MB/s), Kinesis typically wins on total cost and simplicity. At large scale (500+ MB/s), self-managed Kafka delivers better price-performance for teams with platform engineering capabilities. The choice depends on throughput requirements, team expertise, and AWS ecosystem integration needs.