[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":1470},["ShallowReactive",2],{"active-banner":3,"navbar-featured-partner-blog":24,"navbar-pricing-featured":306,"blog-\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction":1086,"blog-authors-\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction":1403,"related-\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction":1451},{"id":4,"title":5,"date":6,"dismissible":7,"extension":8,"link":9,"link2":10,"linkText":11,"linkText2":12,"meta":13,"stem":21,"variant":22,"__hash__":23},"banners\u002Fbanners\u002Flakestream-ufk-launch.md","StreamNative Introduces Lakestream Architecture and Launches Native Kafka Service","2026-04-07",true,"md","\u002Fblog\u002Ffrom-streams-to-lakestreams","https:\u002F\u002Fconsole.streamnative.cloud\u002Fsignup?from=banner_lakestream-launch","Read Announcement","Sign Up Now",{"body":14},{"type":15,"value":16,"toc":17},"minimark",[],{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":20},"",2,[],"banners\u002Flakestream-ufk-launch","default","zRueBGutATZB0ZnFFHwaEV7F0Di4tnZUHhgOiI4cu6k",{"id":25,"title":26,"authors":27,"body":29,"canonicalUrl":289,"category":290,"createdAt":289,"date":291,"description":292,"extension":8,"featured":7,"image":293,"isDraft":294,"link":289,"meta":295,"navigation":7,"order":296,"path":297,"readingTime":298,"relatedResources":289,"seo":299,"stem":300,"tags":301,"__hash__":305},"blogs\u002Fblog\u002Fstreamnative-recognized-in-the-forrester-wave-streaming-data-platforms-2025.md","StreamNative Recognized as a Contender in The Forrester Wave™: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2025",[28],"David Kjerrumgaard",{"type":15,"value":30,"toc":276},[31,39,47,51,67,73,78,81,87,102,109,115,118,124,127,134,140,143,146,157,163,169,172,175,178,184,191,194,197,204,207,210,224,229,233,237,241,245,249,251,268,270],[32,33,35],"h3",{"id":34},"receives-highest-possible-scores-in-both-the-messaging-and-resource-optimization-criteria",[36,37,38],"em",{},"Receives Highest Possible Scores in BOTH the Messaging and Resource Optimization Criteria",[40,41,43],"h2",{"id":42},"introduction",[44,45,46],"strong",{},"Introduction",[48,49,50],"p",{},"Real-time data has become the backbone of modern innovation. As artificial intelligence (AI) and digital services demand instantaneous insights, organizations are realizing that streaming data is no longer optional – it's essential for delivering timely, context-rich experiences. StreamNative's data streaming platform is built precisely for this reality, ensuring data is immediate, reliable, and ready to power critical applications.",[48,52,53,54,63,64],{},"Today, we're excited to announce that Forrester Research has named StreamNative as a Contender in its evaluation, ",[55,56,58],"a",{"href":57},"\u002Freports\u002Frecognized-in-the-forrester-wave-tm-streaming-data-platforms-q4-2025",[36,59,60],{},[44,61,62],{},"The Forrester Wave™: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2025",". This report evaluated 15 top streaming data platform providers, and we're proud to share that ",[44,65,66],{},"StreamNative received the highest scores possible—5 out of 5—in both the Messaging and Resource Optimization criteria.",[48,68,69,70],{},"***Forrester's Take: ***",[36,71,72],{},"\"StreamNative is a good fit for enterprises that want an Apache Pulsar implementation that is also compatible with Kafka APIs.\"",[48,74,75],{},[36,76,77],{},"— The Forrester Wave™: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2025",[48,79,80],{},"Being recognized in the Forrester Wave is a proud milestone, and for us, it highlights how far StreamNative has come in enabling enterprises to unlock the power of real-time data. In the sections below, we'll dive into what we believe sets StreamNative apart—from our modern architecture and cloud-native design to our open-source foundation and real-time use cases—and how we see these strengths aligning with Forrester's findings.",[40,82,84],{"id":83},"trusted-by-industry-leaders",[44,85,86],{},"Trusted by Industry Leaders",[48,88,89,90,93,94,97,98,101],{},"Companies across industries are already leveraging StreamNative to drive real-time outcomes. Global enterprises like ",[44,91,92],{},"Cisco"," rely on StreamNative to handle massive IoT telemetry, supporting 245 million+ connected devices. Martech leaders such as ",[44,95,96],{},"Iterable"," process billions of events per day with StreamNative for hyper-personalized customer engagement. And in financial services, ",[44,99,100],{},"FICO"," trusts StreamNative to power its real-time fraud detection and analytics pipelines with a secure, scalable streaming backbone.",[48,103,104,105,108],{},"The Forrester report notes that, “",[36,106,107],{},"Customers appreciate the lower infrastructure costs that result from StreamNative’s cost-efficient, Kafka-compatible architecture. Customers note excellent support responsiveness…","”",[40,110,112],{"id":111},"modern-cloud-native-architecture-built-for-scale",[44,113,114],{},"Modern, Cloud-Native Architecture Built for Scale",[48,116,117],{},"From day one, StreamNative was designed with a modern architecture to meet the demanding scale and flexibility requirements of real-time data. Unlike legacy streaming systems that often rely on tightly coupled storage and compute, StreamNative's platform takes a cloud-native approach: it decouples these layers to enable elastic scalability and efficient resource utilization across any environment. The core is powered by Apache Pulsar—a distributed messaging and streaming engine—enhanced with multi-protocol support (including native Apache Kafka API compatibility) to unify diverse data streams under one roof. This means organizations can consolidate siloed messaging systems and handle both high-volume event streams and traditional message queues on a single platform, without sacrificing performance or reliability.",[48,119,120,121,108],{},"Forrester's evaluation described that “",[36,122,123],{},"StreamNative aims to provide a high-performance, multi-protocol streaming data platform: It uses Apache Pulsar with Kafka API compatibility to deliver cost-efficient, real-time applications for enterprises. It appeals to organizations that want a flexible, low-cost streaming solution, due to its focus on scalability and resource optimization, while its investments in Pulsar’s open-source ecosystem and performance optimization make it the primary platform for enterprises wishing to implement Pulsar.",[48,125,126],{},"Our cloud-first, leaderless architecture (with no single broker bottlenecks) and tiered storage model were built to maximize throughput and cost-efficiency for real-time workloads. By separating compute from storage and leveraging distributed object storage, StreamNative can retain huge volumes of event data indefinitely while keeping compute costs in check—effectively providing a flexible, low-cost streaming solution.",[48,128,129,130,133],{},"This modern design not only delivers high performance, but also ensures fault tolerance and geo-distribution out of the box, so enterprises can trust their streaming data is always available and durable. As Forrester’s evaluation noted, StreamNative ",[36,131,132],{},"\"excels at messaging and resource optimization\" and “Its platform supports use cases like real-time analytics and event-driven architectures with robust scalability.","” Our architecture provides the strong foundation that today's real-time applications demand, from ultra-fast data ingestion to seamless scale-out across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.",[40,135,137],{"id":136},"open-source-foundation-and-pulsar-expertise",[44,138,139],{},"Open Source Foundation and Pulsar Expertise",[48,141,142],{},"StreamNative's DNA is rooted in open source innovation. Our founders are the original creators of Apache Pulsar, and we've built our platform with the same open principles: freedom, flexibility, and community-driven innovation. For developers and data teams, this means adopting StreamNative comes with no proprietary lock-in—instead, you get a platform built on open standards and a thriving ecosystem. We offer broad API compatibility (Pulsar, Kafka, JMS, MQTT, and more) so that teams can work with familiar interfaces and integrate StreamNative into existing systems with ease.",[48,144,145],{},"StreamNative is the primary commercial contributor to the Apache Pulsar project and its surrounding ecosystem. We invest heavily in Pulsar's ongoing improvements our investments in Pulsar's open-source ecosystem and performance optimization bolster StreamNative's value. We also foster a vibrant community through initiatives like the Data Streaming Summit and free training resources.",[48,147,148,149,152,153,156],{},"Forrester's assessment noted that StreamNative’s “",[36,150,151],{},"events-driven agents, extensibility, and performance architecture are solid,","” and we're continuing to build on that foundation. ",[44,154,155],{},"We're actively investing in expanding our tooling for observability, governance, schema management, and developer productivity","—areas we recognize as critical for enterprise adoption and where we're committed to accelerating our roadmap.",[48,158,159,160],{},"Being open also means embracing an open ecosystem of technologies. StreamNative actively integrates with the tools and platforms that matter most to our users. We partner with industry leaders like Snowflake, Databricks, Google, and Ververica to ensure our streaming platform works seamlessly with data warehouses, lakehouse storage, and stream processing frameworks. Forrester’s evaluation observed that StreamNative’s ",[36,161,162],{},"\"investments in Pulsar’s open-source ecosystem and performance optimization make it the primary platform for enterprises wishing to implement Pulsar.\"",[40,164,166],{"id":165},"powering-real-time-use-cases-across-industries",[44,167,168],{},"Powering Real-Time Use Cases Across Industries",[48,170,171],{},"One of the greatest validations of StreamNative's approach is the success our customers are achieving with real-time data. StreamNative's platform is versatile and use-case agnostic—if an application demands high-volume, low-latency data movement, we can power it. This flexibility is why our customer base spans industries from finance and IoT to major automobile manufacturers and online gaming. The common thread is that these organizations need to process and react to data in milliseconds, and StreamNative is delivering the capabilities to make that possible.",[48,173,174],{},"Cisco uses StreamNative to underpin an IoT telemetry system of colossal scale, connecting hundreds of millions of devices and thousands of enterprise clients with real-time data streams. The platform's multi-tenant design and proven reliability allow Cisco to offer its customers a live feed of device data with unwavering confidence. In the financial sector, FICO has built streaming pipelines on StreamNative to detect fraud as transactions happen and to monitor systems in real time. With StreamNative's strong guarantees around message durability and ordering, FICO can catch anomalies or suspicious patterns within seconds. And in digital customer engagement, Iterable relies on StreamNative to process billions of events every day—clicks, views, purchases—so that marketers can trigger personalized campaigns instantly based on user behavior.",[48,176,177],{},"Our customers uniformly deal with mission-critical data streams, where downtime or delays are unacceptable. StreamNative's fault-tolerant, scalable infrastructure has proven equal to the task, handling scenarios like bursting to millions of events per second or seamlessly spanning multiple cloud regions. Forrester's report recognized StreamNative for supporting event-driven architectures with robust scalability—which for us is a reflection of our platform's ability to meet the most demanding enterprise requirements.",[40,179,181],{"id":180},"continuing-to-innovate-ursa-orca-and-the-road-ahead",[44,182,183],{},"Continuing to Innovate: Ursa, Orca, and the Road Ahead",[48,185,186,187,190],{},"While we are thrilled to be recognized in Forrester's Streaming Data Platforms Wave, we view this as just the beginning. StreamNative's vision has always been bold: to ",[44,188,189],{},"provide a unified platform that not only handles today's streaming needs but also anticipates the emerging requirements of tomorrow",".",[48,192,193],{},"One key area of focus is the convergence of streaming data with advanced analytics and AI. As Forrester points out in the report, technology leaders should look for platforms that natively integrate messaging, stream processing, and analytics to provide AI agents with real-time, contextualized information. We couldn't agree more. Our award-winning Ursa Engine and Orca Agent Engine are aimed at extending our platform up the stack—bridging the gap between data streams and data lakes, and between event streams and intelligent processing.",[48,195,196],{},"Our new Ursa Engine introduces a lakehouse-native approach to streaming: it can write events directly to table formats like Iceberg on cloud storage, eliminating entire classes of ETL jobs and making fresh data instantly available for analytics queries. By integrating streaming and lakehouse technologies, we help customers collapse data silos and accelerate their AI\u002FML pipelines.",[48,198,199,200,203],{},"Beyond analytics integration, we are also enhancing StreamNative with more out-of-the-box processing and governance capabilities. In the coming months, we plan to introduce new features for lightweight stream processing and transformation, making it easier to build reactive applications directly on the platform. We're also expanding our ecosystem of connectors and integrations, so that whether your data lands in Snowflake, Databricks, or an AI model, StreamNative will seamlessly feed it. ",[44,201,202],{},"We're investing significantly in enterprise features including security, schema registry, governance, and monitoring tooling","—capabilities that are essential for mission-critical deployments and where we're committed to continued improvement.",[48,205,206],{},"This recognition from Forrester energizes us to keep innovating at full speed. We're sharing this honor with our amazing customers, community, and partners who drive us forward every day. Your feedback and real-world challenges have helped shape StreamNative into what it is today, and together, we will shape the future of streaming data. Thank you for joining us on this journey—we're just getting started, and we can't wait to deliver even more value as we continue to evolve our platform. Onward to real-time everything!",[208,209],"hr",{},[32,211,213],{"id":212},"streamnative-in-the-forrester-wave-evaluation-findings",[44,214,215,216,223],{},"StreamNative in ",[44,217,218],{},[55,219,220],{"href":57},[44,221,222],{},"The Forrester Wave™",": Evaluation Findings",[225,226,228],"h5",{"id":227},"recognized-as-a-contender-among-15-streaming-data-platform-providers","• Recognized as a Contender among 15 streaming data platform providers",[225,230,232],{"id":231},"received-the-highest-scores-possible-50-in-both-the-messaging-and-resource-optimization-criteria","* Received the highest scores possible (5.0) in both the Messaging and Resource Optimization criteria",[225,234,236],{"id":235},"cited-as-the-primary-platform-for-enterprises-wishing-to-implement-pulsar","• Cited as the primary platform for enterprises wishing to implement Pulsar",[225,238,240],{"id":239},"noted-for-excelling-at-messaging-and-resource-optimization","• Noted for excelling at messaging and resource optimization",[225,242,244],{"id":243},"customers-cited-lower-infrastructure-costs-and-excellent-support-responsiveness","• Customers cited lower infrastructure costs and excellent support responsiveness",[225,246,248],{"id":247},"recognized-for-supporting-event-driven-architectures-with-robust-scalability","• Recognized for supporting event-driven architectures with robust scalability",[208,250],{},[252,253,255,256,259,260,190],"h6",{"id":254},"forrester-disclaimer-forrester-does-not-endorse-any-company-product-brand-or-service-included-in-its-research-publications-and-does-not-advise-any-person-to-select-the-products-or-services-of-any-company-or-brand-based-on-the-ratings-included-in-such-publications-information-is-based-on-the-best-available-resources-opinions-reflect-judgment-at-the-time-and-are-subject-to-change-for-more-information-read-about-forresters-objectivity-here","**Forrester Disclaimer: **",[36,257,258],{},"Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change",". *For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity *",[55,261,265],{"href":262,"rel":263},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.forrester.com\u002Fabout-us\u002Fobjectivity\u002F",[264],"nofollow",[36,266,267],{},"here",[208,269],{},[252,271,273],{"id":272},"apache-apache-pulsar-apache-kafka-apache-flink-and-other-names-are-trademarks-of-the-apache-software-foundation-no-endorsement-by-apache-or-other-third-parties-is-implied",[36,274,275],{},"Apache®, Apache Pulsar®, Apache Kafka®, Apache Flink® and other names are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation. No endorsement by Apache or other third parties is implied.",{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":277},[278,280,281,282,283,284,285],{"id":34,"depth":279,"text":38},3,{"id":42,"depth":19,"text":46},{"id":83,"depth":19,"text":86},{"id":111,"depth":19,"text":114},{"id":136,"depth":19,"text":139},{"id":165,"depth":19,"text":168},{"id":180,"depth":19,"text":183,"children":286},[287],{"id":212,"depth":279,"text":288},"StreamNative in The Forrester Wave™: Evaluation Findings",null,"Company","2025-12-16","StreamNative is recognized in The Forrester Wave™: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2025. Discover why Forrester highlights StreamNative's high-performance messaging, efficient resource use, and cost-effective Kafka API compatibility for real-time innovation.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F693bd36cf01b217dcb67278f_Streamnative_blog_thumbnail.png",false,{},0,"\u002Fblog\u002Fstreamnative-recognized-in-the-forrester-wave-streaming-data-platforms-2025","10 mins read",{"title":26,"description":292},"blog\u002Fstreamnative-recognized-in-the-forrester-wave-streaming-data-platforms-2025",[302,303,304],"Announcements","Real-Time","Forrester","5Nr1vAcqlQ7yFQfdL0a3MLsNFerVmEOQJXD9Twz5lx8",{"id":307,"title":308,"authors":309,"body":314,"canonicalUrl":289,"category":1073,"createdAt":289,"date":1074,"description":1075,"extension":8,"featured":7,"image":1076,"isDraft":294,"link":289,"meta":1077,"navigation":7,"order":296,"path":1078,"readingTime":1079,"relatedResources":289,"seo":1080,"stem":1081,"tags":1082,"__hash__":1085},"blogs\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-we-run-a-5-gb-s-kafka-workload-for-just-50-per-hour.md","How We Run a 5 GB\u002Fs Kafka Workload for Just $50 per Hour",[310,311,312,313],"Matteo Meril","Neng Lu","Hang Chen","Penghui Li",{"type":15,"value":315,"toc":1043},[316,319,322,325,328,331,335,338,348,354,357,365,370,374,381,384,387,395,399,402,407,411,414,417,420,423,432,436,439,450,453,457,460,463,474,477,481,485,493,496,500,508,537,541,544,549,553,556,560,563,566,571,580,585,588,591,602,606,609,620,624,627,630,635,638,667,671,673,679,682,687,692,695,699,713,717,728,732,747,756,767,770,773,777,780,783,794,797,800,803,808,813,817,821,838,842,856,861,865,876,879,895,899,910,915,920,928,932,935,939,946,950,953,962,967,976,982,991,1000,1009,1018,1027,1035],[48,317,318],{},"The rise of DeepSeek has shaken the AI infrastructure market, forcing companies to confront the escalating costs of training and deploying AI models. But the real pressure point isn’t just compute—it’s data acquisition and ingestion costs.",[48,320,321],{},"As businesses rethink their AI cost-containment strategies, real-time data streaming is emerging as a critical enabler. The growing adoption of Kafka as a standard protocol has expanded cost-efficient options, allowing companies to optimize streaming analytics while keeping expenses in check.",[48,323,324],{},"Ursa, the data streaming engine powering StreamNative’s managed Kafka service, is built for this new reality. With its leaderless architecture and native lakehouse storage integration, Ursa eliminates costly inter-zone network traffic for data replication and client-to-broker communication while ensuring high availability at minimal operational cost.",[48,326,327],{},"In this blog post, we benchmarked the infrastructure cost and total cost of ownership (TCO) for running a 5GB\u002Fs Kafka workload across different Kafka vendors, including Redpanda, Confluent WarpStream, and AWS MSK. Our benchmark results show that Ursa can sustain 5GB\u002Fs Kafka workloads at just 5% of the cost of traditional streaming engines like Redpanda—making it the ideal solution for high-performance, cost-efficient ingestion and data streaming for data lakehouses and AI workloads.",[48,329,330],{},"Note: We also evaluated vanilla Kafka in our benchmark; however, for simplicity, we have focused our cost comparison on vendor solutions rather than self-managed deployments. That said, it is important to highlight that both Redpanda and vanilla Kafka use a leader-based data replication approach. In a data-intensive, network-bound workload like 5GB\u002Fs streaming, with the same machine type and replication factor, Redpanda and vanilla Kafka produced nearly identical cost profiles.",[40,332,334],{"id":333},"key-benchmark-findings","Key Benchmark Findings",[48,336,337],{},"Ursa delivered 5 GB\u002Fs of sustained throughput at an infrastructure cost of just $54 per hour. For comparison:",[339,340,341,345],"ul",{},[342,343,344],"li",{},"MSK: $303 per hour → 5.6x more expensive compared to Ursa",[342,346,347],{},"Redpanda: $988 per hour → 18x more expensive compared to Ursa",[48,349,350],{},[351,352],"img",{"alt":18,"src":353},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c71b67d9046f26edc7977_AD_4nXfvTqyBNUBu2lObdkKAx-5UNkpNP8UYULLZyOcixE6z99VMZUUEsUqWjzexI7vjyNGRNSAUoM9smYvdTP55ctAhIbrs5lmQgcSVMWdaoigbWouCl95DVSQsxooY-qqfGcYqS4g4zA.png",[48,355,356],{},"Beyond infrastructure costs, when factoring in both storage pricing, vendor pricing and operational expenses, Ursa’s total cost of ownership (TCO) for a 5GB\u002Fs workload with a 7-day retention period is:",[339,358,359,362],{},[342,360,361],{},"50% cheaper than Confluent WarpStream",[342,363,364],{},"85% cheaper than MSK and Redpanda",[48,366,367],{},[351,368],{"alt":18,"src":369},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602d77e9c706de5343b8_AD_4nXeDv8rrv_C1CTCCiqYo1zpvlGYbdBk1r0VEqovAPu22iFMQZgh54Hfw9PBMLzM7jDFxKwAFDxbdG0np4XVk_tGsWhEKMloLRcmmea7lvueCx-0cFsyaE3Mya4Mxc1Dox95A6JEc.png",[40,371,373],{"id":372},"ursa-highly-cost-efficient-data-streaming-at-scale","Ursa: Highly Cost-Efficient Data Streaming at Scale",[48,375,376,380],{},[55,377,379],{"href":378},"\u002Fblog\u002Fursa-reimagine-apache-kafka-for-the-cost-conscious-data-streaming","Ursa"," is a next-generation data streaming engine designed to deliver high performance at a fraction of the cost of traditional disk-based solutions. It is fully compatible with Apache Kafka and Apache Pulsar APIs, while leveraging a leaderless, lakehouse-native architecture to maximize scalability, efficiency, and cost savings.",[48,382,383],{},"Ursa’s key innovation is separating storage from compute and decoupling metadata\u002Findex operations from data operations by utilizing cloud object storage (e.g., AWS S3) instead of costly inter-zone disk-based replication. It also employs open lakehouse formats (Iceberg and Delta Lake), enabling columnar compression to significantly reduce storage costs while maintaining durability and availability.",[48,385,386],{},"In contrast, traditional streaming systems—like Kafka and Redpanda—depend on leader-based architectures, which drive up inter-zone traffic costs due to replication and client communication. Ursa mitigates these costs by:",[339,388,389,392],{},[342,390,391],{},"Eliminating inter-zone traffic costs via a leaderless architecture.",[342,393,394],{},"Replacing costly inter-zone replication with direct writes to cloud storage using open lakehouse formats.",[40,396,398],{"id":397},"how-ursa-eliminates-inter-zone-traffic","How Ursa Eliminates Inter-Zone Traffic",[48,400,401],{},"Ursa minimizes inter-zone traffic by leveraging a leaderless architecture, which eliminates inter-zone communication between clients and brokers, and lakehouse-native storage, which removes the need for inter-zone data replication. This approach ensures high availability and scalability while avoiding unnecessary cross-zone data movement.",[48,403,404],{},[351,405],{"alt":18,"src":406},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602e21b3571bb7117dca_AD_4nXd7Oahc77NjRLNvA9clLt0tsyU6MrIqVibFYv5pW5giTIcCHPr3EA_yTGzfVEUIVO3VXK56qWK8zmBCp5lY0E_4nmlWIPFrHjtHylA5NhwELjn-UB0fLG2h_kbrxrc7Cs_edvveNA.png",[32,408,410],{"id":409},"leaderless-architecture","Leaderless architecture",[48,412,413],{},"Traditional streaming engines such as Kafka, Pulsar, or RedPanda rely on a leader-based model, where each partition is assigned to a single leader broker that handles all writes and reads.",[48,415,416],{},"Pros of Leader-Based Architectures:\n✔ Maintains message ordering via local sequence IDs\n✔ Delivers low latency and high performance through message caching",[48,418,419],{},"Cons of Leader-Based Architectures:\n✖ Throughput bottlenecked by a single broker per partition\n✖ Inter-zone traffic required for high availability in multi-AZ deployments",[48,421,422],{},"While Kafka and Pulsar offer partial solutions (e.g., reading from followers, shadow topics) to reduce read-related inter-zone traffic, producers still send data to a single leader.",[48,424,425,426,431],{},"Ursa removes the concept of topic ownership, allowing any broker in the cluster to handle reads or writes for any partition. The primary challenge—ensuring message ordering—is solved with ",[55,427,430],{"href":428,"rel":429},"https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002Fstreamnative\u002Foxia",[264],"Oxia",", a scalable metadata and index service created by StreamNative in 2022.",[32,433,435],{"id":434},"oxia-the-metadata-layer-enabling-leaderless-architecture","Oxia: The Metadata Layer Enabling Leaderless Architecture",[48,437,438],{},"Ensuring message ordering in a leaderless architecture is complex, but Ursa solves this with Oxia:",[339,440,441,444,447],{},[342,442,443],{},"Handles millions of metadata\u002Findex operations per second",[342,445,446],{},"Generates sequential IDs to maintain strict message ordering",[342,448,449],{},"Optimized for Kubernetes with horizontal scalability",[48,451,452],{},"Producers and consumers can connect to any broker within their local AZ, eliminating inter-zone traffic costs while maintaining performance through localized caching.",[32,454,456],{"id":455},"zero-interzone-data-replication","Zero interzone data replication",[48,458,459],{},"In most distributed systems, data replication from a leader (primary) to followers (replicas) is crucial for fault tolerance and availability. However, replication across zones can inflate infrastructure expenses substantially.",[48,461,462],{},"Ursa avoids these costs by writing data directly to cloud storage (e.g., AWS S3, Google GCS):",[339,464,465,468,471],{},[342,466,467],{},"Built-In Resilience: Cloud storage inherently offers high availability and fault tolerance without inter-zone traffic fees.",[342,469,470],{},"Tradeoff: Slightly higher latency (sub-second, with p99 at 500 milliseconds) compared to local disk\u002FEBS (single-digit to sub-100 milliseconds), in exchange for significantly lower costs (up to 10x lower).",[342,472,473],{},"Flexible Modes: Ursa is an addition to the classic BookKeeper-based engine, providing users with the flexibility to optimize for either cost or low latency based on their workload requirements.",[48,475,476],{},"By foregoing conventional replication, Ursa slashes inter-zone traffic costs and associated complexities—making it a compelling option for organizations seeking to balance high-performance data streaming with strict budget constraints.",[40,478,480],{"id":479},"how-we-ran-a-5-gbs-test-with-ursa","How We Ran a 5 GB\u002Fs Test with Ursa",[32,482,484],{"id":483},"ursa-cluster-deployment","Ursa Cluster Deployment",[339,486,487,490],{},[342,488,489],{},"9 brokers across 3 availability zones, each on m6i.8xlarge (Fixed 12.5 Gbps bandwidth, 32 vCPU cores, 128 GB memory).",[342,491,492],{},"Oxia cluster (metadata store) with 3 nodes of m6i.8xlarge, distributed across three availability zones (AZs).",[48,494,495],{},"During peak throughput (5 GB\u002Fs), each broker’s network usage was about 10 Gbps.",[32,497,499],{"id":498},"openmessaging-benchmark-workers-configuration","OpenMessaging Benchmark Workers & Configuration",[48,501,502,503,507],{},"The OpenMessaging Benchmark(OMB) Framework is a suite of tools that make it easy to benchmark distributed messaging systems in the cloud. Please check ",[55,504,505],{"href":505,"rel":506},"https:\u002F\u002Fopenmessaging.cloud\u002Fdocs\u002Fbenchmarks\u002F",[264]," for details.",[339,509,510,525,534],{},[342,511,512,513,518,519,524],{},"12 OMB workers: 6 for ",[55,514,517],{"href":515,"rel":516},"https:\u002F\u002Fgist.github.com\u002Fcodelipenghui\u002Fd1094122270775e4f1580947f80c5055",[264],"producers",", 6 for ",[55,520,523],{"href":521,"rel":522},"https:\u002F\u002Fgist.github.com\u002Fcodelipenghui\u002F06bada89381fb77a7862e1b4c1d8963d",[264],"consumers"," across 3 availability zones, on m6i.8xlarge instances. Each worker is configured with 12 CPU cores and 48 GB memory.",[342,526,527,528,533],{},"Sample YAML ",[55,529,532],{"href":530,"rel":531},"https:\u002F\u002Fgist.github.com\u002Fcodelipenghui\u002F204c1f26c4d44a218ae235bf2de99904",[264],"scripts"," provided for Kafka-compatible configuration and rate limits.",[342,535,536],{},"Achieved consistent 5 GB\u002Fs publish\u002Fsubscribe throughput.",[40,538,540],{"id":539},"ursa-benchmark-tests-results","Ursa Benchmark Tests & Results",[48,542,543],{},"The following diagram demonstrates that Ursa can consistently handle 5 GB\u002Fs of traffic, fully saturating the network across all broker nodes.",[48,545,546],{},[351,547],{"alt":18,"src":548},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602d7b261bac1113f7d6_AD_4nXdDPsRc3koXICiFF0bqSmGWbJt_RlUy4FE3ruuWOfbCfpcqZ1dejjqGbkaCJv2hQFL1nirRouBVRW2l5uMWBvY9naMqGB_wHcLI14dBM0f85TXhmdm3UxEv1yGX9Y4hf5FttSkZew.png",[40,550,552],{"id":551},"comparing-infrastructure-cost","Comparing Infrastructure Cost",[48,554,555],{},"This benchmark first evaluates infrastructure costs of running a 5 GB\u002Fs streaming workload (1:1 producer-to-consumer ratio) across different data streaming engines, including Ursa, Redpanda, and AWS MSK, with a focus on multi-AZ deployments to ensure a fair comparison.",[32,557,559],{"id":558},"test-setup-key-assumptions","Test Setup & Key Assumptions",[48,561,562],{},"All tests use multi-AZ configurations, with clusters and clients distributed across three AWS availability zones (AZs). Cluster size scales proportionally to the number of AZs, and rack-awareness is enabled for all engines to evenly distribute topic partitions and leaders.",[48,564,565],{},"To ensure a fair comparison, we selected the same machine type capable of fully utilizing both network and storage bandwidth for Ursa and Redpanda in this 5GB\u002Fs test:",[339,567,568],{},[342,569,570],{},"9 × m6i.8xlarge instances",[48,572,573,574,579],{},"However, MSK's storage bandwidth limits vary depending on the selected instance type, with the highest allowed limit capped at 1000 MiB\u002Fs per broker, according to",[55,575,578],{"href":576,"rel":577},"https:\u002F\u002Fdocs.aws.amazon.com\u002Fmsk\u002Flatest\u002Fdeveloperguide\u002Fmsk-provision-throughput-management.html#throughput-bottlenecks",[264]," AWS documentation",". Given this constraint, achieving 5 GB\u002Fs throughput with a replication factor of 3 required the following setup:",[339,581,582],{},[342,583,584],{},"15 × kafka.m7g.8xlarge (32 vCPUs, 128 GB memory, 15 Gbps network, 4000 GiB EBS).",[48,586,587],{},"This configuration was necessary to work around MSK's storage bandwidth limitations, ensuring a comparable cost basis to other evaluated streaming engines.",[48,589,590],{},"Additional key assumptions include:",[339,592,593,596,599],{},[342,594,595],{},"Inter-AZ producer traffic: For leader-based engines, two-thirds of producer-to-broker traffic crosses AZs due to leader distribution.",[342,597,598],{},"Consumer optimizations: Follower fetch is enabled across all tests, eliminating inter-AZ consumer traffic.",[342,600,601],{},"Storage cost exclusions: This benchmark only evaluates streaming costs, assuming no long-term data retention.",[32,603,605],{"id":604},"inter-broker-replication-costs","Inter-Broker Replication Costs",[48,607,608],{},"Inter-broker (cross-AZ) replication is a major cost driver for data streaming engines:",[339,610,611,614,617],{},[342,612,613],{},"RedPanda: Inter-broker replication is not free, leading to substantial costs when data must be copied across multiple availability zones.",[342,615,616],{},"AWS MSK: Inter-broker replication is free, but MSK instance pricing is significantly higher (e.g., $3.264 per hour for kafka.m7g.8xlarge vs $1.306 per hour for an on-demand m7g.8xlarge). The storage price of MSK is $0.10 per GB-month which is significantly higher than st1, which costs $0.045 per GB-month. Even though replication is free, client-to-broker traffic still incurs inter-AZ charges.",[342,618,619],{},"Ursa: No inter-broker replication costs due to its leaderless architecture, eliminating inter-zone replication costs entirely.",[32,621,623],{"id":622},"zone-affinity-reducing-inter-az-costs","Zone Affinity: Reducing Inter-AZ Costs",[48,625,626],{},"We evaluated zone affinity mechanisms to further reduce inter-AZ data transfer costs.",[48,628,629],{},"Consumers:",[339,631,632],{},[342,633,634],{},"Follower fetch is enabled across all tests, ensuring consumers fetch data from replicas in their local AZ—eliminating inter-zone consumer traffic except for metadata lookups",[48,636,637],{},"Producers:",[339,639,640,649,658],{},[342,641,642,643,648],{},"Kafka protocol lacks an easy way to enforce producer AZ affinity (though ",[55,644,647],{"href":645,"rel":646},"https:\u002F\u002Fcwiki.apache.org\u002Fconfluence\u002Fdisplay\u002FKAFKA\u002FKIP-1123:+Rack-aware+partitioning+for+Kafka+Producer",[264],"KIP-1123"," aims to address this). And it only works with the default partitioner (i.e., when no record partition or record key is specified).",[342,650,651,652,657],{},"Redpanda recently introduced ",[55,653,656],{"href":654,"rel":655},"https:\u002F\u002Fdocs.redpanda.com\u002Fredpanda-cloud\u002Fdevelop\u002Fproduce-data\u002Fleader-pinning\u002F",[264],"leader pinning",", but this only benefits setups where producers are confined to a single AZ—not applicable to our multi-AZ benchmark.",[342,659,660,661,666],{},"Ursa is the only system in this test with ",[55,662,665],{"href":663,"rel":664},"https:\u002F\u002Fdocs.streamnative.io\u002Fdocs\u002Fconfig-kafka-client#eliminate-cross-az-networking-traffic",[264],"built-in zone affinity for both producers and consumers",". It achieves this by embedding producer AZ information in client.id, allowing metadata lookups to route clients to local-AZ brokers, eliminating inter-AZ producer traffic.",[32,668,670],{"id":669},"cost-comparison-results","Cost Comparison Results",[48,672,337],{},[339,674,675,677],{},[342,676,344],{},[342,678,347],{},[48,680,681],{},"Ursa’s leaderless architecture, zone affinity, and native cloud storage integration deliver unparalleled cost efficiency, making it the most cost-effective choice for high-throughput data streaming workloads.",[48,683,684],{},[351,685],{"alt":18,"src":686},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c72208198ca36a352f228_AD_4nXeeZuM8T-xBlD4Vf3j67K618n08qh8wIDLLtiLJG0ssA1Wj1V26u7wIDTX9sqLrtw8mB2c299dwzarGen62CG0Vh7nWstn5qbPGFcBaKJYEepTsLr5fHWv1U8uqbg8Y0UOK6fJ7.png",[48,688,689],{},[351,690],{"alt":18,"src":691},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c625978031f40229de484_AD_4nXdLkLLJ30KKr-_A_rN1j8akVwBYacAWIPzWHoOReJF421890kfByZoQQxkLczihVSmiw5Q9J51-V9I2SEKITbwsYnANDDTlAVL5nQ_jfaHNTe9VEWhSoa7DZooCnilDYL6l6msmJg.png",[48,693,694],{},"The detailed infrastructure cost calculations for each data streaming engine are listed below:",[32,696,698],{"id":697},"streamnative-ursa","StreamNative - Ursa",[339,700,701,704,707,710],{},[342,702,703],{},"Server EC2 costs: 9 * $1.536\u002Fhr = $14",[342,705,706],{},"Client EC2 costs: 9 * $1.536\u002Fhr =$14",[342,708,709],{},"S3 write requests costs: 1350 r\u002Fs * $0.005\u002F1000r * 3600s = $24",[342,711,712],{},"S3 read requests costs: 1350 r\u002Fs * $0.0004\u002F1000r * 3600s = $2",[32,714,716],{"id":715},"aws-msk","AWS MSK",[339,718,719,722,725],{},[342,720,721],{},"Server EC2 costs: 15 * $3.264\u002Fhr = $49",[342,723,724],{},"Client side EC2 costs: 9 * $1.536\u002Fhr =$14",[342,726,727],{},"Interzone traffic - producer to broker: 5GB\u002Fs * ⅔ * $0.02\u002FG(in+out) * 3600 = $240",[32,729,731],{"id":730},"redpanda","RedPanda",[339,733,734,736,738,741,744],{},[342,735,703],{},[342,737,706],{},[342,739,740],{},"Interzone traffic - producer to broker: 5GB\u002Fs * ⅔ * $0.02\u002FGB(in+out) * 3600 = $240",[342,742,743],{},"Interzone traffic - replication: 10GB\u002Fs * $0.02\u002FGB(in+out) * 3600 = $720",[342,745,746],{},"Interzone traffic - broker to consumer: $0 (fetch from local zone)",[48,748,749,750,755],{},"Please note that we were unable to test ",[55,751,754],{"href":752,"rel":753},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.redpanda.com\u002Fblog\u002Fcloud-topics-streaming-data-object-storage",[264],"Redpanda with Cloud Topics",", as it remains an announced but unreleased feature and is not yet available for evaluation. Based on the limited information available, while Cloud Topics may help optimize inter-zone data replication costs, producers still need to traverse inter-availability zones to connect to the topic partition owners and incur inter-zone traffic costs of up to $240 per hour.",[339,757,758,764],{},[342,759,760,763],{},[55,761,647],{"href":645,"rel":762},[264]," (when implemented) will help mitigate producer-to-broker inter-zone traffic, but it is not yet available. And it only works with the default partitioner (no record partition or key is specified).",[342,765,766],{},"Redpanda’s leader pinning helps only when all producers for the pinned topic are confined to a single AZ. In multi-AZ environments (like our benchmark), inter-zone producer traffic remains unavoidable.",[48,768,769],{},"Additionally, Redpanda’s Cloud Topics architecture is not documented publicly. Their blog mentions \"leader placement rules to optimize produce latency and ingress cost,\" but it is unclear whether this represents a shift away from a leader-based architecture or if it uses techniques similar to Ursa’s zone-aware approach.",[48,771,772],{},"We may revisit this comparison as more details become available.",[40,774,776],{"id":775},"comparing-total-cost-of-ownership","Comparing Total Cost of Ownership",[48,778,779],{},"As highlighted earlier, with a BYOC Ursa setup, you can achieve 5 GB\u002Fs throughput at just 5% of the infrastructure cost of a traditional leader-based data streaming engine, such as Kafka or RedPanda, while managing the infrastructure yourself. This significant cost reduction is enabled by Ursa’s leaderless architecture and lakehouse-native storage design, which eliminate overhead costs such as inter-zone traffic and leader-based data replication. By leveraging a lakehouse-native, leaderless architecture, Ursa reduces resource requirements, enabling you to handle high data throughput efficiently and at a fraction of the cost of RedPanda.",[48,781,782],{},"Now, let’s examine the total cost comparison, evaluating Ursa alongside other vendors, including those that have adopted a leaderless architecture (e.g., Confluent WarpStream). This comparison is based on a 5GB\u002Fs workload with a 7-day retention period, factoring in both storage cost and vendor costs Here are the key findings:",[339,784,785,788,791],{},[342,786,787],{},"Ursa ($164,353\u002Fmonth) is: 50% cheaper than Confluent WarpStream ($337,068\u002Fmonth)",[342,789,790],{},"85% cheaper than AWS MSK ($1,115,251\u002Fmonth)",[342,792,793],{},"86% cheaper than Redpanda ($1,202,853\u002Fmonth)",[48,795,796],{},"In addition to Ursa’s architectural advantages—eliminating most inter-AZ traffic and leveraging lakehouse storage for cost-effective data retention—it also adopts a more fair and cost-efficient pricing model: Elastic Throughput-based pricing. This approach aligns costs with actual usage, avoiding unnecessary overhead.",[48,798,799],{},"Unlike WarpStream, which charges for both storage and throughput, Ursa ensures that customers only pay for the throughput they actively use. Ursa’s pricing is based on compressed data sent by clients, meaning the more data compressed on the client side, the lower the cost. In contrast, WarpStream prices are based on uncompressed data, unfairly inflating expenses and failing to incentivize customers to optimize their client applications.",[48,801,802],{},"This distinction is crucial, as compressed data reduces both storage and network costs, making Ursa’s pricing model not only more cost-effective but also more transparent and predictable.",[48,804,805],{},[351,806],{"alt":18,"src":807},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602d194800c9206d9d58_AD_4nXcFlf755xgyz7htxhMhBV5fGrsxy642mQNodt61DTok_z1dwkw5A6lkO5hatXVneCaB0anbZPAyvLI3MlIMuQEYLEACHHvQMOr5UfaB37dfzkdqewDEvcT-20VGd_zzvJsuA00zGA.png",[48,809,810],{},[351,811],{"alt":18,"src":812},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c62594e9c2e629fae73aa_AD_4nXeU6cOgItnjLsEZCOf13TEvMY_SHWWIxYP2OYUj-B1GUPyWO78OG08K_v03hwYSVcg06f9dqDiGmdwy76vynjmiDGL5bluZ5_XF4nSU_r59oOZdfViXndXt6s11vVOY7qwfZN8v.png",[32,814,816],{"id":815},"cost-breakdown","Cost Breakdown",[818,819,820],"h4",{"id":697},"StreamNative – Ursa",[339,822,823,826,829,832,835],{},[342,824,825],{},"EC2 (Server): 9 × $1.536\u002Fhr × 24 hr × 30 days = $9,953.28",[342,827,828],{},"S3 Write Requests: 1,350 r\u002Fs × $0.005\u002F1,000 r × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 30 days = $17,496",[342,830,831],{},"S3 Read Requests: 1,350 r\u002Fs × $0.0004\u002F1,000 r × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 30 days = $1,400",[342,833,834],{},"S3 Storage Costs: 5 GB\u002Fs × $0.021\u002FGB × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 7 days = $63,504",[342,836,837],{},"Vendor Cost: 200 ETU × $0.50\u002Fhr × 24 hr × 30 days = $72,000",[818,839,841],{"id":840},"warpstream","WarpStream",[339,843,844,847],{},[342,845,846],{},"Based on WarpStream’s pricing calculator (as of January 29, 2025), we assume a 4:1 client data compression ratio, meaning 20 GB\u002Fs of uncompressed data translates to 5 GB\u002Fs of compressed data.",[342,848,849,850,855],{},"It's important to note that WarpStream’s pricing structure has fluctuated frequently throughout January. We observed the cost reported by their calculator changing from $409,644 per month to $337,068 per month. This variability has been previously highlighted in the blog post “",[55,851,854],{"href":852,"rel":853},"https:\u002F\u002Fbigdata.2minutestreaming.com\u002Fp\u002Fthe-brutal-truth-about-apache-kafka-cost-calculators",[264],"The Brutal Truth About Kafka Cost Calculators","”. To ensure transparency, we have documented the pricing as of January 29, 2025.",[48,857,858],{},[351,859],{"alt":18,"src":860},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602e42713e0028e9af5e_AD_4nXcu5_VWTLu9jRYs6zX1MBAOtLQEo5gyfNSWPcbpnQHXTa8qNCFAXezRR2E8daygzYTTwd4dhJjaLaLM8C6y_3OGbu2NS7pdvEv3a8-ptNKOg7AeKnYqPQCAYvQ5EuxzuI3JYIvY.png",[818,862,864],{"id":863},"msk","MSK",[339,866,867,870,873],{},[342,868,869],{},"EC2 (Server): 15 * $3.264\u002Fhr × 24 hr × 30 days = $35,251",[342,871,872],{},"Interzone Traffic (Client-Server): 5 GB\u002Fs × ⅔ × $0.02\u002FGB (in+out) × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 30 days = $172,800",[342,874,875],{},"Storage: 5 GB\u002Fs × $0.1\u002FGB-month × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 7 days * 3 replicas = $907,200",[818,877,731],{"id":878},"redpanda-1",[339,880,881,884,886,889,892],{},[342,882,883],{},"EC2 (Server): 9 × $1.536\u002Fhr × 24 hr × 30 days = $9953",[342,885,872],{},[342,887,888],{},"Interzone Traffic (Replication): 5 GB\u002Fs × 2 × $0.02\u002FGB (in+out) × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 30 days = $518,400",[342,890,891],{},"Storage: 5 GB\u002Fs × $0.045\u002FGB-month(st1) × 3,600 s × 24 hr × 7 days * 3 replicas = $408,240",[342,893,894],{},"Vendor Cost: $93,333 per month (based on limited information. See additional notes below).",[818,896,898],{"id":897},"additional-notes","Additional Notes",[339,900,901],{},[342,902,903,904,909],{},"Redpanda does not publicly disclose its BYOC pricing, making it difficult to accurately assess its total costs. We refer to information from the whitepaper “",[55,905,908],{"href":906,"rel":907},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.redpanda.com\u002Fresources\u002Fredpanda-vs-confluent-performance-tco-benchmark-report#form",[264],"Redpanda vs. Confluent: A Performance and TCO Benchmark Report by McKnight Consulting Group.","” for estimation purposes. Based on the Tier-8 pricing model in the whitepaper,  the estimated cost to support a 5GB\u002Fs workload would be $1.12 million per year ($93,333 per month). However, since this calculation is based on an estimation, we will revisit and refine the cost assessment once Redpanda publishes its BYOC pricing.",[48,911,912],{},[351,913],{"alt":18,"src":914},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602dc8a9859eed89a0ef_AD_4nXdbcO8vsNNPy4GtkNLlmNKf22fjxRvzLzH7CtOna1L08sTbvnZx3HhufeFqc1w4K2gEF7lxO2IR5supotxebAiGnA07Qa8Yr3Rd1pVK2LYKK4WurlJGwgdwwucZIFoF-N_2oBjY.png",[48,916,917],{},[351,918],{"alt":18,"src":919},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c602d6bc1c2287e012540_AD_4nXfcHZnLfjbjIr3ZAgoQXT9dwP3aQCOQPmGZZJUtpNZSwE6qY6M3yehIaBxCwxEIeu5PVdUPY0zhyjnow26YfgjdYgSG4GnV9ibxu0YWTIpwng6z_F6FUGJMpERMKtpsFESzXSN_Sw.png",[339,921,922,925],{},[342,923,924],{},"When estimating the storage costs for Kafka and Redpanda, we assume the use of HDD storage at $0.045\u002FGB, based on the premise that both systems can fully utilize disk bandwidth without incurring the higher costs associated with GP2 or GP3 volumes. However, in practice, many users opt for GP2 or GP3, significantly increasing the total storage cost for Kafka and Redpanda.",[342,926,927],{},"Unlike disk-based solutions, S3 storage does not require capacity preallocation—Ursa only incurs costs for the actual data stored. This contrasts with Kafka and Redpanda, where preallocating storage can drive up expenses. As a result, the real-world storage costs for Kafka and Redpanda are often 50% higher than the estimates above.",[40,929,931],{"id":930},"conclusion","Conclusion",[48,933,934],{},"Ursa represents a transformative shift in streaming data infrastructure, offering cost efficiency, scalability, and flexibility without compromising durability or reliability. By leveraging a leaderless architecture and eliminating inter-zone data replication, Ursa reduces total cost of ownership by over 90% compared to traditional leader-based streaming engines like Kafka and Redpanda. Its direct integration with cloud storage and scalable metadata & index management via Oxia ensure high availability and simplified infrastructure management.",[32,936,938],{"id":937},"balancing-latency-and-cost","Balancing Latency and Cost",[48,940,941,945],{},[55,942,944],{"href":943},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcap-theorem-for-data-streaming","Ursa trades off slightly higher latency for ultra low cost",", making it an ideal choice for the majority of streaming workloads, especially those that prioritize throughput and cost savings over ultra-low latency. Meanwhile, StreamNative’s BookKeeper-based engine remains the preferred solution for real-time, latency-sensitive applications. By combining these two approaches, StreamNative empowers customers with the flexibility to choose the right engine for their specific needs—whether it's maximizing cost savings or achieving ultra low-latency real-time performance.",[32,947,949],{"id":948},"the-future-of-streaming-infrastructure","The Future of Streaming Infrastructure",[48,951,952],{},"In an era where data fuels AI, analytics, and real-time decision-making, managing infrastructure costs is critical to sustaining innovation. Ursa is not just a cost-cutting alternative—it is a forward-thinking, lakehouse-native platform that redefines how modern data streaming infrastructure should be built and operated.",[48,954,955,956,961],{},"Whether your priority is reducing costs, improving flexibility, or ingesting massive data into lakehouses, Ursa delivers a future-proof solution for the evolving demands of real-time data streaming. ",[55,957,960],{"href":958,"rel":959},"https:\u002F\u002Fconsole.streamnative.cloud\u002F",[264],"Get started"," with StreamNative Ursa today!",[963,964,966],"h1",{"id":965},"references","References",[48,968,969,972,973],{},[970,971,430],"span",{}," ",[55,974,975],{"href":975},"\u002Fblog\u002Fintroducing-oxia-scalable-metadata-and-coordination",[48,977,978,972,980],{},[970,979,379],{},[55,981,378],{"href":378},[48,983,984,972,987],{},[970,985,986],{},"StreamNative pricing",[55,988,989],{"href":989,"rel":990},"https:\u002F\u002Fdocs.streamnative.io\u002Fdocs\u002Fbilling-overview",[264],[48,992,993,972,996],{},[970,994,995],{},"WarpStream pricing",[55,997,998],{"href":998,"rel":999},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.warpstream.com\u002Fpricing#pricingfaqs",[264],[48,1001,1002,972,1005],{},[970,1003,1004],{},"AWS S3 pricing",[55,1006,1007],{"href":1007,"rel":1008},"https:\u002F\u002Faws.amazon.com\u002Fs3\u002Fpricing\u002F",[264],[48,1010,1011,972,1014],{},[970,1012,1013],{},"AWS EBS pricing",[55,1015,1016],{"href":1016,"rel":1017},"https:\u002F\u002Faws.amazon.com\u002Febs\u002Fpricing\u002F",[264],[48,1019,1020,972,1023],{},[970,1021,1022],{},"AWS MSK pricing",[55,1024,1025],{"href":1025,"rel":1026},"https:\u002F\u002Faws.amazon.com\u002Fmsk\u002Fpricing\u002F",[264],[48,1028,1029,972,1032],{},[970,1030,1031],{},"The Brutal Truth about Kafka Cost Calculators",[55,1033,852],{"href":852,"rel":1034},[264],[48,1036,1037,972,1040],{},[970,1038,1039],{},"Redpanda vs. Confluent: A Performance and TCO Benchmark Report by McKnight Consulting Group",[55,1041,906],{"href":906,"rel":1042},[264],{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":1044},[1045,1046,1047,1052,1056,1057,1066,1069],{"id":333,"depth":19,"text":334},{"id":372,"depth":19,"text":373},{"id":397,"depth":19,"text":398,"children":1048},[1049,1050,1051],{"id":409,"depth":279,"text":410},{"id":434,"depth":279,"text":435},{"id":455,"depth":279,"text":456},{"id":479,"depth":19,"text":480,"children":1053},[1054,1055],{"id":483,"depth":279,"text":484},{"id":498,"depth":279,"text":499},{"id":539,"depth":19,"text":540},{"id":551,"depth":19,"text":552,"children":1058},[1059,1060,1061,1062,1063,1064,1065],{"id":558,"depth":279,"text":559},{"id":604,"depth":279,"text":605},{"id":622,"depth":279,"text":623},{"id":669,"depth":279,"text":670},{"id":697,"depth":279,"text":698},{"id":715,"depth":279,"text":716},{"id":730,"depth":279,"text":731},{"id":775,"depth":19,"text":776,"children":1067},[1068],{"id":815,"depth":279,"text":816},{"id":930,"depth":19,"text":931,"children":1070},[1071,1072],{"id":937,"depth":279,"text":938},{"id":948,"depth":279,"text":949},"StreamNative Cloud","2025-01-31","Discover how Ursa achieves 5GB\u002Fs Kafka workloads at just 5% of the cost of traditional streaming engines like Redpanda and AWS MSK. See our benchmark results comparing infrastructure costs, total cost of ownership (TCO), and performance across leading Kafka vendors.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F679c6593d25099b1cdcec4ca_image-31.png",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-we-run-a-5-gb-s-kafka-workload-for-just-50-per-hour","30 min",{"title":308,"description":1075},"blog\u002Fhow-we-run-a-5-gb-s-kafka-workload-for-just-50-per-hour",[1083,1084,303],"TCO","Apache Kafka","CDUawvFKTs_AD8usvmIcTleU3mbfA0QAoPZM6xfVuo8",{"id":1087,"title":1088,"authors":1089,"body":1090,"canonicalUrl":289,"category":1391,"createdAt":289,"date":1392,"description":1393,"extension":8,"featured":294,"image":1394,"isDraft":294,"link":289,"meta":1395,"navigation":7,"order":296,"path":1396,"readingTime":1397,"relatedResources":289,"seo":1398,"stem":1399,"tags":1400,"__hash__":1402},"blogs\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction.md","Pulsar Newbie Guide for Kafka Engineers (Part 5): Retention, TTL & Compaction",[313,312,311],{"type":15,"value":1091,"toc":1382},[1092,1095,1098,1102,1105,1108,1116,1119,1122,1125,1128,1134,1137,1140,1143,1151,1155,1158,1161,1164,1169,1172,1175,1178,1181,1184,1188,1191,1199,1202,1210,1213,1216,1219,1223,1226,1229,1232,1237,1242,1245,1259,1262,1265,1268,1271,1274,1278,1281,1295,1298,1302,1320,1324,1347,1350,1352,1354,1356,1365,1368,1375],[48,1093,1094],{},"‍TL;DR",[48,1096,1097],{},"Pulsar offers flexible message retention policies and features like Time-to-Live (TTL) and Topic Compaction, which differ from Kafka’s approach. By default, Pulsar retains messages until they are acknowledged (no time limit) and deletes them immediately once acknowledged. But you can configure retention to keep acknowledged messages for a duration or size (like Kafka’s log retention), as well as TTL to discard unacknowledged messages after a while (prevent infinite backlog). Pulsar also supports log compaction to keep the latest value per key, similar to Kafka’s compaction but implemented via a separate compacted ledger. We’ll explain these settings and how to use them to manage Pulsar topic storage, using Kafka’s behavior as a reference point.",[40,1099,1101],{"id":1100},"message-retention-in-pulsar-vs-kafka","Message Retention in Pulsar vs Kafka",[48,1103,1104],{},"Kafka’s model: In Kafka, retention is typically time-based or size-based per topic. For example, you might retain logs for 7 days or 10 GB. Kafka does not consider whether a message was consumed – it will delete messages older than the retention period regardless of consumer status. This means Kafka brokers can delete old data even if some slow consumer hasn’t processed it yet (that consumer would then miss those messages).",[48,1106,1107],{},"Pulsar’s default model: Pulsar, being a messaging system with acknowledgments, by default behaves differently:",[339,1109,1110,1113],{},[342,1111,1112],{},"Pulsar will keep all unacknowledged messages indefinitely (in storage) by default, to ensure consumers can get them whenever they come online.",[342,1114,1115],{},"Once a message is acknowledged by all subscriptions, Pulsar will immediately mark it for deletion (it can be deleted from storage).",[48,1117,1118],{},"In other words, Pulsar’s out-of-the-box behavior is: “retain data as long as someone still needs it; delete it as soon as nobody needs it.” This is more akin to a traditional messaging queue – messages don’t pile up once consumed.",[48,1120,1121],{},"This is basically opposite to Kafka’s strategy of time-based retention. If you hooked up a Pulsar topic with no special retention config and a consumer, and that consumer always stays caught up (acking messages), the topic would use almost no storage (only very recent unacked messages). In Kafka, the topic would accumulate data up to the retention period regardless of consumption.",[48,1123,1124],{},"Configurable Retention: Pulsar allows you to alter this behavior via retention policies. You can set a retention period (time and\u002For size) for messages even after acknowledgment. For instance, you might say: “Keep messages for 1 day or 1 GB, whichever comes first, even after consumers ack them.” That way, consumers could potentially reconnect within a day and replay data, or you could attach a new subscription within a day to reprocess history.",[48,1126,1127],{},"This is done at the namespace or topic level using pulsar-admin namespaces set-retention. For example:",[48,1129,1130],{},[351,1131],{"alt":1132,"src":1133},"__wf_reserved_inherit","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b859eb4fa7539ffa13f99c_iShot_2025-09-03_23.08.15.png",[48,1135,1136],{},"This would keep acknowledged messages for 24 hours or until 1 GB per topic is reached. After that, older messages are removed (even if not acked? Actually, acked messages only – unacked are still kept as backlog; more on that next).",[48,1138,1139],{},"To clarify: Pulsar retention policy applies to acknowledged messages (the ones that normally would be deleted immediately). Unacknowledged messages are governed by TTL (time-to-live) settings, not the retention policy.",[48,1141,1142],{},"So you have two separate concepts:",[339,1144,1145,1148],{},[342,1146,1147],{},"Retention (Acknowledged messages): Keep some history of consumed messages.",[342,1149,1150],{},"TTL (Time-to-Live for Unacknowledged messages): After a certain time, treat unacknowledged messages as acknowledged (essentially drop them).",[40,1152,1154],{"id":1153},"time-to-live-ttl-for-unacked-messages","Time-to-Live (TTL) for Unacked Messages",[48,1156,1157],{},"Why TTL? Consider a scenario where a consumer goes offline or is very slow – by default, Pulsar will keep feeding it its backlog forever. If that backlog grows massive, it could consume a lot of storage. In Kafka, if a consumer falls behind beyond retention, it just misses data (or if using a compacted topic, older state vanishes). Pulsar gives an option to say: “If messages haven’t been acknowledged for X time, we assume they won’t be and we discard them.”",[48,1159,1160],{},"This is message TTL (a per-namespace or per-topic setting). For example, set TTL to 7 days and any message not acknowledged more than 7 days of being published will be automatically marked as acknowledged (expired) and won’t be deliverable to consumers. It essentially protects the system from an infinite backlog due to a stuck consumer.",[48,1162,1163],{},"Using pulsar-admin:",[48,1165,1166],{},[351,1167],{"alt":1132,"src":1168},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b85a2ad18fa42d7c6ae957_iShot_2025-09-03_23.09.19.png",[48,1170,1171],{},"(604800 seconds is 7 days). This would mean messages older than 7 days that are still unacked are expired.",[48,1173,1174],{},"From the docs: “If disk space is a concern, you can set a time to live (TTL) that determines how long unacknowledged messages will be retained. The TTL parameter is like a stopwatch attached to each message... when it expires, Pulsar automatically moves the message to the acknowledged state (and thus makes it ready for deletion)”.",[48,1176,1177],{},"That nicely summarizes TTL: after TTL, a message is considered acknowledged (even if the consumer never acked it), so it will be removed like any other acked message.",[48,1179,1180],{},"TTL is somewhat analogous to Kafka’s retention for the tail of the log, but specifically for unconsumed messages. Kafka doesn’t differentiate – it just kills old records. Pulsar, with TTL, gives you a safety net: normally you might not want to lose unconsumed messages, but at some point, you might prefer dropping them than letting them endlessly accumulate.",[48,1182,1183],{},"Backlog Quota: Another related concept is backlog quota. You can set a limit on how large a backlog (unacked messages) can grow (by size or time), and what to do when that limit is reached (e.g., reject producers, or start discarding oldest messages). This is configured separately (set-backlog-quota). For example, you might allow up to 50 GB of backlog; if more, either block producers (to exert backpressure) or throw oldest messages away. Backlog quota policies can complement TTL for robust control.",[40,1185,1187],{"id":1186},"kafka-like-retention-in-pulsar","Kafka-like Retention in Pulsar",[48,1189,1190],{},"If a Kafka engineer wants to emulate Kafka’s log retention (i.e., retain data for X days regardless of consumption), you can do that by:",[339,1192,1193,1196],{},[342,1194,1195],{},"Setting a retention period for acknowledged messages (so data sticks around even if consumed).",[342,1197,1198],{},"Also potentially setting a TTL for unacknowledged to that same period (so that if a consumer is not there, we don’t keep forever beyond that period).",[48,1200,1201],{},"For example, to mimic “retain messages for 7 days no matter what”:",[339,1203,1204,1207],{},[342,1205,1206],{},"Set namespace retention to 7 days (acknowledged messages retained 7 days).",[342,1208,1209],{},"Set TTL to 7 days (unacknowledged messages expire after 7 days).",[48,1211,1212],{},"Now Pulsar will behave more like Kafka: any message will exist for at most 7 days, whether or not it’s consumed.",[48,1214,1215],{},"However, be careful: If you have TTL=7d and your consumer is down for 8 days, it will lose messages from that gap (similar to Kafka consumer falling behind retention). If you truly never want to lose unconsumed data, you might leave TTL off (infinite) but then you rely on disk capacity or backlog quotas to handle runaway consumers.",[48,1217,1218],{},"By default, Pulsar doesn’t expire unacked messages (TTL off) and doesn’t retain acked messages (retention 0). So default is “only store what’s needed”. Kafka default is typically something like “store for a week”.",[40,1220,1222],{"id":1221},"compaction-maintaining-latest-state-per-key","Compaction: Maintaining Latest State Per Key",[48,1224,1225],{},"Kafka’s log compaction feature allows topics to retain only the latest value for each key (removing older values, except the latest and maybe some history). This is useful for state change events or last-known-value semantics. Pulsar offers a similar feature: Topic Compaction.",[48,1227,1228],{},"However, the implementation has a twist. In Pulsar, compaction doesn’t rewrite the existing data in place (since data is stored in BK ledgers). Instead, running compaction produces a new compacted ledger that contains the latest values per key. Consumers can then choose to read from the compacted ledger if they want a compressed view of the topic.",[48,1230,1231],{},"In practice:",[339,1233,1234],{},[342,1235,1236],{},"You trigger compaction manually via CLI or set it to run periodically. For example:",[48,1238,1239],{},[351,1240],{"alt":1132,"src":1241},"\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b85b1a91e7c2e2f07fcc0c_iShot_2025-09-03_23.13.23.png",[48,1243,1244],{},"‍",[339,1246,1247,1250,1253,1256],{},[342,1248,1249],{},"This will initiate compaction. The broker goes through the topic’s backlog and builds a new ledger with only the latest message for each key.",[342,1251,1252],{},"After compaction, the topic has two sets of data: the full log (uncompacted backlog) and a compacted snapshot. Pulsar retains both. Why? Because some consumers might want to read the full log (e.g., if they’re processing every change), while others might want just the latest state.",[342,1254,1255],{},"A consumer can choose to read from the compacted view by setting readCompacted(true) on the consumer (only allowed for subscriptions with certain types, typically exclusive or failover subs, since shared subs could break the model). When readCompacted is true, the broker will serve from the compacted ledger (for earlier data) and then live data for new writes, essentially giving an experience similar to Kafka’s compacted topic.",[342,1257,1258],{},"Compaction respects retention: if retention has removed some messages entirely, those won’t be in the compacted log either. Also, compaction doesn’t delete the original data immediately; it just provides a compacted copy. The older ledgers remain (and could still be consumed normally or for auditing). You can configure Pulsar to truncate older ledgers once compacted up to a point, but by default, you might manually manage that or rely on retention.",[48,1260,1261],{},"One key difference: Kafka’s compacted topics can still optionally have a retention time to delete old tombstones or limit log size. Pulsar’s compaction essentially ensures at least the latest per key is kept, and if you want old data removed beyond that, you’d use retention or TTL.",[48,1263,1264],{},"Tombstones: Pulsar honors the concept of a null message as a deletion marker (tombstone). If a message with key K and null value is published, compaction will remove K from the compacted log (so it won’t appear at all for consumers reading compacted). This is like Kafka’s tombstone mechanic.",[48,1266,1267],{},"One limitation mentioned: “Pulsar is slightly less flexible in this regard. Messages can only be removed from the compact ledger via explicit deletion by key, otherwise you can expect to store at least the latest message for all keys”. This means Pulsar compacted topics always keep the last value for each key until you explicitly delete by sending a null (Kafka allows you to also set a retention on compacted topics to eventually drop even the last values after a time if needed). Pulsar’s approach is “keep last forever (or until explicit tombstone)”.",[48,1269,1270],{},"Use cases: If you want a topic that holds, say, the latest status of each user, you would use compaction. Produce updates with a key (user ID) and value (status). Compaction will ensure only the most recent status per user is kept in the compacted view. A new consumer can read the compacted log from start and quickly get the latest state of all users without going through all historical changes.",[48,1272,1273],{},"Running compaction doesn’t block the topic – you can run it while publishing is happening. It’s an operation that reads the backlog and writes a new ledger. It might consume resources, so schedule it appropriately (e.g., off-peak).",[40,1275,1277],{"id":1276},"putting-it-all-together","Putting It All Together",[48,1279,1280],{},"Let’s consider how you might configure a Pulsar namespace for different scenarios, drawing parallels to Kafka:",[339,1282,1283,1286,1289,1292],{},[342,1284,1285],{},"Ephemeral stream (like Kafka’s default): If you want data to vanish after some time regardless of consumption (like a Kafka topic with 7-day retention and maybe consumers that are expected to keep up or else miss data), you’d set a retention period (time-based) and maybe TTL the same or slightly larger. For example, retention 7 days, TTL 7 days. This way, acked or not, after 7 days data is gone. Consumers that fall behind by more than 7 days lose data. This is a trade-off for bounded storage.",[342,1287,1288],{},"Work queue (at-least-once, but not infinite backlog): Perhaps you have a queue that should not grow unbounded if consumers are down. You might set TTL for unacked messages to, say, 2 days. If consumers are down for >2 days, those tasks expire. But if they come back before that, they get everything. You might not bother retaining acknowledged messages at all in this case.",[342,1290,1291],{},"Durable log (don’t lose anything; like Kafka with infinite retention or very long retention): Keep TTL off (or extremely high) so you never drop unacked messages. Consumers can always come back and get their backlog. Also, maybe set retention for acked messages to some large value if you want the ability to re-read even after ack (like an audit trail). Or use pulsar-admin topics terminate to mark an endpoint and handle archival externally. Keep an eye on storage though – infinite retention needs infinite storage or periodic offloading to cold storage (Pulsar has tiered storage to move old ledger data to, e.g., S3).",[342,1293,1294],{},"Compacted topic for state: Set topic to compacted. Also likely set a retention policy so that even after compaction, you keep data (compaction will keep last keys by design, but what about keys that got tombstoned? They’ll be removed in compacted log, but original ledger entries may still exist until retention kicks in). Usually, you combine compaction with an infinite retention (or very long) but it’s compacted so storage doesn’t blow up with old updates. You may still want to purge tombstoned keys after some time – which retention can do for the underlying data.",[48,1296,1297],{},"How to trigger compaction: Kafka’s compaction runs continuously in the background on brokers. Pulsar’s approach is manual or scheduled. In a production Pulsar cluster, you’d typically run an automatic compaction periodically for the topics that need it (via a scheduler or perhaps using Pulsar Functions or external scripts to call the compact command). There’s also a “threshold” based compaction strategy (for example, compact when backlog reaches a certain size). Check Pulsar docs for auto-compaction configs if needed.",[40,1299,1301],{"id":1300},"monitoring-and-admin-for-retentionttl","Monitoring and Admin for Retention\u002FTTL",[339,1303,1304,1311,1314,1317],{},[342,1305,1306,1307],{},"pulsar-admin topics stats ",[1308,1309,1310],"topic",{}," will show retention stats and backlog size. You can see how many messages are stored, backlog size, etc.",[342,1312,1313],{},"If a backlog is consuming too much space, as an admin you might decide to set a TTL or remove a subscription (if a subscription is not needed but still has backlog, dropping it will free those messages).",[342,1315,1316],{},"Pulsar has a concept of inactive subscriptions (subscriptions that have no consumers but still have backlog). If a subscription lingers with backlog and no consumers, those messages will sit forever unless TTL or an admin explicitly expires them. Kafka doesn’t have that scenario because if no consumer reads, data still gets deleted by time. Pulsar’s durability means you should watch for ghost subscriptions. If using Pulsar as a Kafka replacement where you only care about consumer groups that are active, make sure to clean up subscriptions when they are no longer needed (or set a TTL\u002Fbacklog quota so they don’t live forever).",[342,1318,1319],{},"Tiered storage: If you need long retention but don’t want to burden hot storage, Pulsar can offload older ledger data to cloud storage. That’s beyond our scope here, but know that infinite retention is possible by pushing old data out to cheaper storage, somewhat analogous to Kafka’s tiered storage solutions.",[40,1321,1323],{"id":1322},"key-takeaways","Key Takeaways",[339,1325,1326,1329,1332,1335,1338,1341,1344],{},[342,1327,1328],{},"By default, Pulsar retains unacknowledged messages forever and immediately deletes acknowledged messages. This ensures no data loss for slow consumers by default, unlike Kafka which will eventually delete old messages regardless of consumer progress.",[342,1330,1331],{},"Pulsar’s retention policy allows you to keep acknowledged messages for a configured time\u002Fsize. This can make Pulsar topics behave more like Kafka logs, where data is available for reprocessing or late joiners for a window of time after consumption.",[342,1333,1334],{},"TTL (Time-to-Live) deals with the flip side: unacknowledged messages. It sets a limit on how long a message can remain unconsumed before Pulsar drops it. This prevents unbounded growth of backlog if consumers disappear. Kafka’s equivalent (not direct) is just its retention policy which would also delete data not consumed; Pulsar distinguishes between consumed and not consumed.",[342,1336,1337],{},"Log Compaction in Pulsar allows keeping the latest value per key, similar to Kafka’s compacted topics. Pulsar’s compaction generates a separate compacted view that consumers can opt into. Use compaction for stateful topics where you only care about the latest update per key (with tombstones to delete keys).",[342,1339,1340],{},"By combining retention, TTL, and compaction settings, Pulsar gives fine-grained control over data lifespan:You can achieve at-least-once delivery with bounded storage (via TTL).",[342,1342,1343],{},"You can achieve replay of recent history (via retention of acked messages).",[342,1345,1346],{},"You can maintain a compact state topic for lookup of current values (via compaction).\nFor a Kafka engineer, remember that Pulsar does not, by default, throw away data after X days blindly – you must configure it to do so if that’s desired. Conversely, you must monitor and manage backlogs or use TTL to avoid a stuck consumer filling up storage, a scenario Kafka would handle by data expiration but Pulsar will handle by pausing producers or requiring admin action if no TTL\u002Fquota set. Pulsar provides the tools to do this safely and more flexibly.",[48,1348,1349],{},"Next up, in Part 6, we’ll explore Schema Management in Pulsar, where we’ll see how Pulsar’s built-in schema registry compares to Kafka’s schema registry concept and how to enforce schema evolution rules on topics.",[48,1351,1244],{},[208,1353],{},[48,1355,1244],{},[48,1357,1358,1359,1364],{},"Want to go deeper into real-time data and streaming architectures? Join us at the ",[55,1360,1363],{"href":1361,"rel":1362},"https:\u002F\u002Fdatastreaming-summit.org\u002Fevent\u002Fdata-streaming-sf-2025",[264],"Data Streaming Summit San Francisco 2025"," on September 29–30 at the Grand Hyatt at SFO.",[48,1366,1367],{},"30+ sessions | 4 tracks | Real-world insights from OpenAI, Netflix, LinkedIn, Paypal, Uber, AWS, Google, Motorq, Databricks, Ververica, Confluent & more!",[48,1369,1370],{},[55,1371,1374],{"href":1372,"rel":1373},"https:\u002F\u002Fdatastreaming-summit.org\u002Fevent\u002Fdata-streaming-sf-2025\u002Fschedule",[264],"[Explore the Full Agenda]",[48,1376,1377],{},[55,1378,1381],{"href":1379,"rel":1380},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.eventbrite.com\u002Fe\u002Fdata-streaming-summit-san-francisco-2025-tickets-1432401484399?aff=oddtdtcreator",[264],"[Register Now]",{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":1383},[1384,1385,1386,1387,1388,1389,1390],{"id":1100,"depth":19,"text":1101},{"id":1153,"depth":19,"text":1154},{"id":1186,"depth":19,"text":1187},{"id":1221,"depth":19,"text":1222},{"id":1276,"depth":19,"text":1277},{"id":1300,"depth":19,"text":1301},{"id":1322,"depth":19,"text":1323},"Apache Pulsar","2025-09-03","Explore how Apache Pulsar handles message retention, Time-to-Live (TTL), and topic compaction compared to Kafka. Learn how to configure retention policies, prevent infinite backlogs, and use compaction to maintain the latest state per key.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b858ba57c99ef2f3be6848_SN-sm-Pulsar-for-Kafka-Engineers-series-5.png",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction","10 min read",{"title":1088,"description":1393},"blog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-5-retention-ttl-compaction",[1391,1084,1401],"Intro","S4NXrkPRwl3pJvFdNHzkVDb-BJF3giaTrQnx1n_N6lE",[1404,1420,1434],{"id":1405,"title":313,"bioSummary":1406,"email":289,"extension":8,"image":1407,"linkedinUrl":1408,"meta":1409,"position":1416,"stem":1417,"twitterUrl":1418,"__hash__":1419},"authors\u002Fauthors\u002Fpenghui-li.md","Penghui Li is passionate about helping organizations to architect and implement messaging services. Prior to StreamNative, Penghui was a Software Engineer at Zhaopin.com, where he was the leading Pulsar advocate and helped the company adopt and implement the technology. He is an Apache Pulsar Committer and PMC member.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fauthors\u002Fpenghui-li.webp","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.linkedin.com\u002Fin\u002Fpenghui-li-244173184\u002F",{"body":1410},{"type":15,"value":1411,"toc":1414},[1412],[48,1413,1406],{},{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":1415},[],"Director of Streaming, StreamNative & Apache Pulsar PMC Member","authors\u002Fpenghui-li","https:\u002F\u002Ftwitter.com\u002Flipenghui6","WDjET7GfxqVQJ8mTEMaRhgpxRdDy18qZkgQDJlwjvbI",{"id":1421,"title":312,"bioSummary":1422,"email":289,"extension":8,"image":1423,"linkedinUrl":289,"meta":1424,"position":1431,"stem":1432,"twitterUrl":289,"__hash__":1433},"authors\u002Fauthors\u002Fhang.md","Hang Chen, an Apache Pulsar and BookKeeper PMC member, is Director of Storage at StreamNative, where he leads the design of next-generation storage architectures and Lakehouse integrations. His work delivers scalable, high-performance infrastructure powering modern cloud-native event streaming platforms.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fauthors\u002Fhang.webp",{"body":1425},{"type":15,"value":1426,"toc":1429},[1427],[48,1428,1422],{},{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":1430},[],"Director of Storage, StreamNative & Apache Pulsar PMC Member","authors\u002Fhang","titaSDxZRJWAW0SkpJSq43NuDvps9XQ6gZIMSPCtUwo",{"id":1435,"title":311,"bioSummary":1436,"email":289,"extension":8,"image":1437,"linkedinUrl":289,"meta":1438,"position":1447,"stem":1448,"twitterUrl":1449,"__hash__":1450},"authors\u002Fauthors\u002Fneng-lu.md","Neng Lu is currently the Director of Platform at StreamNative, where he leads the engineering team in developing the StreamNative ONE Platform and the next-generation Ursa engine. As an Apache Pulsar Committer, he specializes in advancing Pulsar Functions and Pulsar IO Connectors, contributing to the evolution of real-time data streaming technologies. Prior to joining StreamNative, Neng was a Senior Software Engineer at Twitter, where he focused on the Heron project, a cutting-edge real-time computing framework. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Bachelor's degree from Zhejiang University.","\u002Fimgs\u002Fauthors\u002Fneng-lu.jpeg",{"body":1439},{"type":15,"value":1440,"toc":1445},[1441,1443],[48,1442,1436],{},[48,1444,1244],{},{"title":18,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":1446},[],"Director of Engineering, StreamNative","authors\u002Fneng-lu","https:\u002F\u002Ftwitter.com\u002Fnlu90","R1K8DYRoq92ZrwHOmKtJMRfm-cuTjXTqAv0Cc3Q9IM4",[1452,1460,1465],{"path":1453,"title":1454,"date":1455,"image":1456,"link":-1,"collection":1457,"resourceType":1458,"score":1459,"id":1453},"\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-7-pulsar-security-for-kafka-admins","Pulsar Newbie Guide for Kafka Engineers (Part 7): Pulsar Security for Kafka Admins","2025-09-09","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68c04c79ca9f71615177cbe3_SN-sm-Pulsar-for-Kafka-Engineers-series-7.png","blogs","Blog",1,{"path":1461,"title":1462,"date":1463,"image":1464,"link":-1,"collection":1457,"resourceType":1458,"score":1459,"id":1461},"\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-6-schema-management-in-pulsar","Pulsar Newbie Guide for Kafka Engineers (Part 6): Schema Management in Pulsar","2025-09-04","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b9a6bd89138fb38f8e8af0_SN-sm-Pulsar-for-Kafka-Engineers-series-6.png",{"path":1466,"title":1467,"date":1468,"image":1469,"link":-1,"collection":1457,"resourceType":1458,"score":1459,"id":1466},"\u002Fblog\u002Fpulsar-newbie-guide-for-kafka-engineers-part-4-subscriptions-consumers","Pulsar Newbie Guide for Kafka Engineers (Part 4): Subscriptions & Consumers","2025-08-29","\u002Fimgs\u002Fblogs\u002F68b1b4c6fd73cfc228f21a9a_04.-Subscriptions-&-Consumers-1.png",1776256541040]