IBM Event Streams Alternatives (January 2026)

Aiven for Apache Kafka – Managed event streaming Kafka service ✓ Microservices ✓ Event-driven architecture ✓ Streaming pipelines ✓

Confluent makes it easy to connect your apps, data systems, and entire business with secure, scalable, fully managed Kafka and real-time data streaming, processing, and analytics.

Apache Kafka: A Distributed Streaming Platform.

Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka makes it easier to create, discover and connect to real-time data streams regardless of where they exist.

Amazon MSK is a fully managed, secure, and highly available Apache Kafka service that makes it easy to ingest and process streaming data in real time at a low cost.

Build your application on Instaclustr's fully hosted and managed Apache Kafka as a service solution. Start your free trial now.

IBM MQ is a family of middleware products for point-to-point and publish-subscribe messaging. MQ is available as as SaaS on IBM Cloud, as a hardware appliance, and for self-hosting, including on z/OS.

IBM App Connect is application integration software that connects applications and data sources. It features a no-code interface with hundreds of prebuilt connectors, plus the ability to create custom connectors. It can be deployed on-premises, on any cloud, or as a fully managed service on AWS.

IBM Knowledge Catalog is software to manage and curate data, knowledge assets and their relationships. It is available as managed SaaS or within IBM Cloud Pak for Data.