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Short answer
If the workload is standard, already in a public cloud and not bound by data residency, a hosted service is the fastest route: Confluent Cloud for the fullest Kafka feature set and connectors, Amazon MSK for AWS-native billing and IAM. If the data cannot leave your account, the estate is customised, or you run components the platform does not offer, self-managed Kafka with a support contract keeps control and adds an engineer when it breaks. Operated for you on your infrastructure sits between: your account, your topology, someone else's pager. Running it yourself with no contract is right only for teams that have done it before and have the on-call rota to prove it.
Four ways to run Kafka, on the same criteria
| Confluent Cloud | Amazon MSK | Self-managed with a support contract | Operated for you (AceMQ managed operations) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where the cluster lives | Confluent's account, in your chosen cloud and region | Your AWS account, as a managed service | Wherever you put it | Your infrastructure or cloud account |
| Who chooses the version | Confluent | AWS, from its supported list | You | You, with an upgrade path planned and executed for you |
| Connectors and components | Confluent's catalogue and Schema Registry, ksqlDB, Stream Governance | MSK Connect and the open-source ecosystem; check each connector | Anything Apache Kafka supports | Anything Apache Kafka supports |
| Who answers an incident | Confluent support tiers | AWS support tiers for the service; your team for topics, consumers and connectors | Your on-call, with the contract as escalation to a senior engineer | Named senior engineer, 24/7, 15-minute emergency SLA |
| Cost shape | Usage-based; throughput, storage, connectors and partitions billed separately | Broker-hours and storage on the AWS invoice | Infrastructure plus a contract priced on cluster count and response tier | Engineer time; more than a support contract, without infrastructure leverage |
| Data residency and compliance | Confluent's account; check region and attestations | Your account and region | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Exit | Mirror out; connectors and governance features do not travel | Mirror out; MSK-specific IAM auth does not travel | Nothing to exit | Runbooks and monitoring stay yours; exit is a handover |
| Wins when | You want the fullest managed feature set and are not residency-bound | All-AWS estate, standard workload, procurement simplicity | Custom estate, residency constraint, or a capable platform team | No Kafka specialist to spare and the data cannot move |
Confluent Cloud
The fullest managed Kafka: Confluent runs the cluster in its account in your chosen cloud and region, and sells the surrounding platform with it: Schema Registry, a connector catalogue, ksqlDB, stream governance, and tiered storage. Support follows the product and is authoritative on it. Cost is usage-based, which is easy to start and hard to forecast; throughput, storage, connectors and partitions are billed on separate lines. It wins when you want the platform, not just the broker, and are not bound by where the data lives.
Amazon MSK
Kafka as an AWS service inside your own account: brokers on a supported version list, IAM authentication, CloudWatch metrics, and billing on the AWS invoice. AWS supports the service; your topics, consumers, connectors and the incidents that come from them are yours, which is why MSK estates so often carry an independent support contract at the Kafka layer. It wins for an all-AWS estate with a standard workload and a procurement team that prefers one vendor.
Self-managed Kafka with a support contract
You run the cluster; a senior engineer is on the other end of the contract when it breaks, and alongside you for upgrades, KRaft migration and capacity. Open-source Apache Kafka is fully supportable this way, and so is Confluent Platform. It keeps version choice, connector freedom and data residency entirely yours, at a cost well below a managed service. It fits a platform team that can hold the pager and wants expertise rather than outsourcing.
Operated for you, on your infrastructure
The cluster stays in your account, on your VMs or Kubernetes, and a specialist takes over monitoring, patching, upgrades, capacity and on-call. Nothing about data residency changes. It costs more than a support contract, because it is engineer time with no infrastructure leverage, and it exists for estates where nobody on the team wants to own Kafka and the data cannot move to a hosted platform.
How to decide in one pass
- Can the data leave your account? If not, Confluent Cloud is out; MSK stays in if you are on AWS.
- Do you need Confluent's platform components, or just Kafka? If the platform, Confluent Cloud or Confluent Platform. If just Kafka, any of the other three.
- Is there a platform team that can hold the pager? If yes, self-managed with a support contract. If no, a hosted service or operated-for-you.
- Is the estate customised, or on a version a platform will not run? If yes, self-managed or operated-for-you.
Frequently asked questions
Is Confluent Cloud or Amazon MSK better?
Confluent Cloud for the fullest managed feature set, connector catalogue and stream governance, in any major cloud. MSK for an all-AWS estate that wants Kafka on the AWS invoice with IAM. If the data cannot leave your account, MSK or self-managed; if you need Confluent's components, Confluent.
Does AWS support cover Kafka problems on MSK?
AWS supports the MSK service: broker availability, the managed control plane. Your topics, consumer groups, connectors and the incidents they cause are outside that boundary, which is why MSK estates commonly add independent Kafka support.
Can I get support for self-managed open-source Kafka?
Yes. Apache Kafka is fully supportable as open source under an independent contract, AceMQ's included, with 24/7 cover and a 15-minute emergency SLA, and the same contract can cover MSK and Confluent Platform clusters.
What does it cost to have Kafka operated for you?
More than a support contract, because it is engineer time with no infrastructure leverage, and it is priced on cluster and broker count plus the response tier. The trade is a named engineer holding the pager on an estate that stays in your account.
Related
Where this gets done
The work behind this page, run by the same engineers who wrote it.
- 24/7 Kafka supportSelf-managed, MSK or Confluent Platform
- Kafka consultingPartition strategy, sizing, security and migration
- RabbitMQ supportIf the estate runs both brokers
- Kubernetes and container servicesKafka on Kubernetes, operated with your team
- Enterprise MQ supportOne contract across Kafka, RabbitMQ and IBM MQ
- Enterprise support plansSLA tiers and what each covers
- Enterprise MQ consultingMulti-broker architecture and migration
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- RabbitMQ vs Kafka: What Decides ItSep 2026
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Need this done on your Kafka estate?
Named senior Kafka engineers, 24/7, with a 15-minute emergency SLA — self-managed, MSK or Confluent Platform.