We already proved that Redpanda is 10x faster than Apache Kafka—but is that still true after Kafka introduced KRaft? We ran the tests to find out.

Brandon Kauffman

Prometheus

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Redpanda outperforms Kafka in terms of performance, even with the introduction of KRaft. Redpanda can handle GBps workloads on smaller hardware footprints, while Kafka requires additional hardware to compete. Redpanda is 4-20x faster than Kafka at the tail, and even with additional hardware, Kafka still lags behind. Redpanda's thread-per-core architecture and hardware-efficient design contribute to its superior performance.

Performance update: Redpanda vs. Kafka with KRaft

The test: Redpanda 23.1 vs. Kafka 3.4.0 with KRaft

The results: Redpanda is faster than Kafka, no matter how you slice it