Kafka for event streaming and high throughput. RabbitMQ for task queues and routing.
Kafka¶
- Distributed event log (append-only)
- Extreme throughput (millions msg/sec)
- Persistence — replay from any offset
- Consumer groups — horizontal scaling
- Ideal for event sourcing, data pipelines, analytics
RabbitMQ¶
- Traditional message broker
- Flexible routing (exchanges, bindings)
- Message acknowledgment and retry
- Lower latency for single messages
- Ideal for task queues, RPC, workflows
Comparison¶
- Throughput: Kafka >> RabbitMQ
- Latency: RabbitMQ < Kafka
- Persistence: Kafka = log, RabbitMQ = until consumed
- Routing: RabbitMQ more flexible
- Complexity: both comparable
When to Use Which¶
- Kafka — event streaming, data pipelines, analytics, high throughput
- RabbitMQ — task queues, microservices communication, RPC
Kafka for Streaming, RabbitMQ for Messaging¶
Kafka when you need log and replay. RabbitMQ for classic messaging.
kafkarabbitmqmessagingevents