Apache Flink vs Google Cloud Dataflow comparison

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10,461 views|7,108 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
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4,763 views|3,959 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Flink and Google Cloud Dataflow based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Streaming Analytics solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Apache Flink vs. Google Cloud Dataflow Report (Updated: March 2024).
770,292 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"With Flink, it provides out-of-the-box checkpointing and state management. It helps us in that way. When Storm used to restart, sometimes we would lose messages. With Flink, it provides guaranteed message processing, which helped us. It also helped us with maintenance or restarts.""This is truly a real-time solution.""Another feature is how Flink handles its radiuses. It has something called the checkpointing concept. You're dealing with billions and billions of requests, so your system is going to fail in large storage systems. Flink handles this by using the concept of checkpointing and savepointing, where they write the aggregated state into some separate storage. So in case of failure, you can basically recall from that state and come back.""Easy to deploy and manage.""Apache Flink's best feature is its data streaming tool.""Allows us to process batch data, stream to real-time and build pipelines.""The event processing function is the most useful or the most used function. The filter function and the mapping function are also very useful because we have a lot of data to transform. For example, we store a lot of information about a person, and when we want to retrieve this person's details, we need all the details. In the map function, we can actually map all persons based on their age group. That's why the mapping function is very useful. We can really get a lot of events, and then we keep on doing what we need to do.""The product helps us to create both simple and complex data processing tasks. Over time, it has facilitated integration and navigation across multiple data sources tailored to each client's needs. We use Apache Flink to control our clients' installations."

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"The most valuable features of Google Cloud Dataflow are scalability and connectivity.""The most valuable features of Google Cloud Dataflow are the integration, it's very simple if you have the complete stack, which we are using. It is overall very easy to use, user-friendly friendly, and cost-effective if you know how to use it. The solution is very flexible for programmers, if you know how to do scripts or program in Python or any other language, it's extremely easy to use.""The best feature of Google Cloud Dataflow is its practical connectedness.""I don't need a server running all the time while using the tool. It is also easy to setup. The product offers a pay-as-you-go service.""The service is relatively cheap compared to other batch-processing engines.""The solution allows us to program in any language we desire.""The product's installation process is easy...The tool's maintenance part is somewhat easy.""The support team is good and it's easy to use."

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Cons
"The machine learning library is not very flexible.""In a future release, they could improve on making the error descriptions more clear.""We have a machine learning team that works with Python, but Apache Flink does not have full support for the language.""PyFlink is not as fully featured as Python itself, so there are some limitations to what you can do with it.""In terms of improvement, there should be better reporting. You can integrate with reporting solutions but Flink doesn't offer it themselves.""The solution could be more user-friendly.""There is a learning curve. It takes time to learn.""Apache Flink's documentation should be available in more languages."

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"Google Cloud Dataflow should include a little cost optimization.""There are certain challenges regarding the Google Cloud Composer which can be improved.""The authentication part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.""They should do a market survey and then make improvements.""The technical support has slight room for improvement.""Google Cloud Data Flow can improve by having full simple integration with Kafka topics. It's not that complicated, but it could improve a bit. The UI is easy to use but the experience could be better. There are other tools available that do a better job.""When I deploy the product in local errors, a lot of errors pop up which are not always caught. The solution's error logging is bad. It can take a lot of time to debug the errors. It needs to have better logs.""I would like Google Cloud Dataflow to be integrated with IT data flow and other related services to make it easier to use as it is a complex tool."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This is an open-source platform that can be used free of charge."
  • "The solution is open-source, which is free."
  • "Apache Flink is open source so we pay no licensing for the use of the software."
  • "It's an open-source solution."
  • "It's an open source."
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  • "The price of the solution depends on many factors, such as how they pay for tools in the company and its size."
  • "Google Cloud is slightly cheaper than AWS."
  • "The tool is cheap."
  • "Google Cloud Dataflow is a cheap solution."
  • "The solution is cost-effective."
  • "On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Google Cloud Dataflow's pricing a four out of ten."
  • "On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
  • "The solution is not very expensive."
  • More Google Cloud Dataflow Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The product helps us to create both simple and complex data processing tasks. Over time, it has facilitated integration and navigation across multiple data sources tailored to each client's needs. We… more »
    Top Answer:Flink is free, it's open source. Flink is open source.
    Top Answer:Apache Flink should improve its data capability and data migration.
    Top Answer:The product's installation process is easy...The tool's maintenance part is somewhat easy.
    Top Answer:The authentication part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. For some common users, the solution's authentication part is difficult to use. The scalability of the… more »
    Ranking
    5th
    out of 38 in Streaming Analytics
    Views
    10,461
    Comparisons
    7,108
    Reviews
    7
    Average Words per Review
    423
    Rating
    7.7
    7th
    out of 38 in Streaming Analytics
    Views
    4,763
    Comparisons
    3,959
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    308
    Rating
    7.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Flink
    Google Dataflow
    Learn More
    Overview

    Apache Flink is an open-source batch and stream data processing engine. It can be used for batch, micro-batch, and real-time processing. Flink is a programming model that combines the benefits of batch processing and streaming analytics by providing a unified programming interface for both data sources, allowing users to write programs that seamlessly switch between the two modes. It can also be used for interactive queries.

    Flink can be used as an alternative to MapReduce for executing iterative algorithms on large datasets in parallel. It was developed specifically for large to extremely large data sets that require complex iterative algorithms.

    Flink is a fast and reliable framework developed in Java, Scala, and Python. It runs on the cluster that consists of data nodes and managers. It has a rich set of features that can be used out of the box in order to build sophisticated applications.

    Flink has a robust API and is ready to be used with Hadoop, Cassandra, Hive, Impala, Kafka, MySQL/MariaDB, Neo4j, as well as any other NoSQL database.

    Apache Flink Features

    • Distributed execution of streaming programs on clusters of computers
    • Support for multiple data sources and sinks: this includes Hadoop file systems, databases, and other data sources
    • Streaming SQL query engine with support for windowing functions
    • Low latency query execution in milliseconds
    • Runs in a distributed fashion: it can be deployed on multiple machines or nodes to increase performance and reliability of data processing pipelines.
    • Powerful API that supports both batch and streaming applications
    • Runs on clusters of commodity hardware with minimal configuration
    • Can be integrated with other technologies, such as Apache Spark for complex data mining

    Apache Flink Benefits

    • Ease of use: Flink has an intuitive API and provides high-level abstractions for handling data streams. Even beginners in the field can work with the platform with ease.
    • Fault tolerance: Flink can automatically detect and recover from failures in the system.
    • Scalability: Flink scales to thousands of nodes. It can run on clusters of any size and the user does not have to worry about managing the cluster.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Apache Flink stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its low latency and its user-friendly interface. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    The head of data and analytics at a computer software company notes, “The top feature of Apache Flink is its low latency for fast, real-time data. Another great feature is the real-time indicators and alerts which make a big difference when it comes to data processing and analysis.”

    Ertugrul A., manager at a computer software company, writes, “It's usable and affordable. It is user-friendly and the reporting is good.

    Google Dataflow is a unified programming model and a managed service for developing and executing a wide range of data processing patterns including ETL, batch computation, and continuous computation. Cloud Dataflow frees you from operational tasks like resource management and performance optimization.
    Sample Customers
    LogRhythm, Inc., Inter-American Development Bank, Scientific Technologies Corporation, LotLinx, Inc., Benevity, Inc.
    Absolutdata, Backflip Studios, Bluecore, Claritics, Crystalloids, Energyworx, GenieConnect, Leanplum, Nomanini, Redbus, Streak, TabTale
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Retailer6%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Retailer11%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise72%
    Buyer's Guide
    Apache Flink vs. Google Cloud Dataflow
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Flink vs. Google Cloud Dataflow and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    770,292 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Apache Flink is ranked 5th in Streaming Analytics with 15 reviews while Google Cloud Dataflow is ranked 7th in Streaming Analytics with 10 reviews. Apache Flink is rated 7.6, while Google Cloud Dataflow is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Apache Flink writes "A great solution with an intricate system and allows for batch data processing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Google Cloud Dataflow writes "Easy to use for programmers, user-friendly, and scalable". Apache Flink is most compared with Amazon Kinesis, Spring Cloud Data Flow, Databricks, Azure Stream Analytics and Informatica Data Engineering Streaming, whereas Google Cloud Dataflow is most compared with Databricks, Apache NiFi, Amazon MSK, Amazon Kinesis and Informatica Data Engineering Streaming. See our Apache Flink vs. Google Cloud Dataflow report.

    See our list of best Streaming Analytics vendors.

    We monitor all Streaming Analytics reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.