Apache Flink vs. IBM Streams (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Flink
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Apache Flink is a framework and distributed processing engine for stateful computations over unbounded and bounded data streams. Flink has been designed to run in all common cluster environments, perform computations at in-memory speed and at any scale. And FlinkCEP is the Complex Event Processing (CEP) library implemented on top of Flink. Users can detect event patterns in streams of events.N/A
IBM Streams (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
A real-time analytics solution that turns fast-moving volumes and varieties into insights. Streams evaluates a broad range of streaming data — unstructured text, video, audio, geospatial and sensor. The product was sunsetted in 2024.N/A
Pricing
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Features
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Streaming Analytics
Comparison of Streaming Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Apache Flink
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
IBM Streams (discontinued)
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Real-Time Data Analysis10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Ingestion from Multiple Data Sources7.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Low Latency10.00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Data wrangling and preparation6.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Linear Scale-Out9.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Data Enrichment10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Visualization Dashboards00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Integrated Development Tools00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Machine Learning Automation00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Small Businesses
IBM Streams (discontinued)
IBM Streams (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Amazon Kinesis
Amazon Kinesis
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Confluent
Confluent
Score 9.9 out of 10
Confluent
Confluent
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Spotfire Streaming
Spotfire Streaming
Score 6.6 out of 10
Spotfire Streaming
Spotfire Streaming
Score 6.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache FlinkIBM Streams (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
In well-suited scenarios, I would recommend using Apache Flink when you need to perform real-time analytics on streaming data, such as monitoring user activities, analyzing IoT device data, or processing financial transactions in real-time. It is also a good choice in scenarios where fault tolerance and consistency are crucial. I would not recommend it for simple batch processing pipelines or for teams that aren't experienced, as it might be overkill, and the steep learning curve may not justify the investment.
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Streams is a good fit for situations requiring low end-to-end latency, have complex real-time analytical processing needs on large fast data, or where the reduction of operational costs is important. However, it is very much a data-in-motion technology and not well suited for situations such as some forms of machine learning where the entire historical data set needs to be operated on. Note that it's fairly common to use Streams to perform online scoring using models that were trained offline using other technologies.
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Pros
  • Low latency Stream Processing, enabling real-time analytics
  • Scalability, due its great parallel capabilities
  • Stateful Processing, providing several built-in fault tolerance systems
  • Flexibility, supporting both batch and stream processing
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  • Query analysis of real time streaming data
  • Filter out events based on time windows
  • Scalability for large scale data, production tested
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Cons
  • Python/SQL API, since both are relatively new, still misses a few features in comparison with the Java/Scala option
  • Steep Learning Curve, it's documentation could be improved to something more user-friendly, and it could also discuss more theoretical concepts than just coding
  • Community smaller than other frameworks
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  • Documentation could be more extensive, with more examples, although overall this is not too bad compared to some of the alternative solutions.
  • Seems expensive to use in production.
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Alternatives Considered
Apache Spark is more user-friendly and features higher-level APIs. However, it was initially built for batch processing and only more recently gained streaming capabilities. In contrast, Apache Flink processes streaming data natively. Therefore, in terms of low latency and fault tolerance, Apache Flink takes the lead. However, Spark has a larger community and a decidedly lower learning curve.
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We are using Spark streaming as well as Storm for streaming options. Currently streams provides a better way of building applications easier faster and run efficiently. Also like the flexibility it provides with both us and SPL.
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Return on Investment
  • Allowed for real-time data recovery, adding significant value to the busines
  • Enabled us to create new internal tools that we couldn't find in the market, becoming a strategic asset for the business
  • Enhanced the overall technical capability of the team
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  • Ability to do more with less
  • Admins and data analyst can now focus on more thinking tasks
  • No negative impacts yet
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ScreenShots