Stream Processing Architecture: Kafka Streams vs Flink vs Spark
A decision framework for choosing a stream processor on latency, state, guarantees, ops cost, and team fit.
A decision framework, not a tool tour — weigh latency, state size, delivery guarantees, operational cost, and team fit to choose between Kafka Streams, Flink, and Spark Structured Streaming, then model the cost of a real streaming workload.
Course content
- 01The Decision You're Actually MakingFree
- 02Latency: What Each Engine Can and Can't Promise🔒
- 03State: Size, Access Patterns, and Cost🔒
- 04Delivery Semantics & Correctness Guarantees🔒
- 05Operational Cost & Team Fit🔒
- 06Kafka Streams vs Flink vs Spark Structured Streaming: A Scorecard🔒
- 07Hybrid & Migration Architectures🔒
- 08Cost Modeling a Streaming Workload🔒
- 09Capstone: Choose the Engine for Three TheWorldShop Scenarios🔒
Prerequisites
What to learn next
Read the first chapter free
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