What is AutoMQ
AutoMQ is a next-generation Kafka built for the cloud. The source code for the community version is available on GitHub(https://github.com/AutoMQ/automq). With an innovative architecture based on EBS WAL and S3 shared storage architecture, AutoMQ offers better cost efficiency, scalability, and performance compared to Kafka.

What is Confluent
Confluent is an enterprise-grade stream data platform built on Apache Kafka, created by the original development team of Kafka. It aims to extend Kafka's capabilities, providing a more comprehensive data stream processing solution. Its core products, Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud, enhance the Kafka ecosystem by integrating features like the stream processing database ksqlDB, enterprise-grade connectors, Schema Registry, and support for multi-language development. Additionally, it offers elastic scalability and hybrid cloud deployment, while strengthening security controls (such as SSL and RBAC) and ensuring exactly-once processing semantics.
Pricing Comparison
The following diagram illustrates how AutoMQ leverages technical innovations to reduce costs by over 90% compared to Confluent, without any performance degradation, under typical production workloads. These technical innovations primarily include:
Computation (94.7% Cost Reduction)
Stateless Brokers decouple computing from storage
Resource optimization can be achieved by using elastic scaling or spot instances.
Network (99% Cost Savings)
Shared Storage eliminates cross AZ Traffic Fees
Minimize network overhead with optimized S3 writes.
Storage (78.3% Reduction in Cost)
Save time and money with Amazon S3 Write-Ahead logging (WAL), shared storage, and Amazon S3 .
It eliminates the need for costly local disks.
Operations
Automated scaling eliminates over-provisioning.
Simplified maintenance reduces operating overhead.
