# Amazon MSK alternatives: what AI models name instead, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. 172 of the 252 answers in the 1 category where Amazon MSK holds a standing named it neither first nor as an alternative; these are the first choices those answers made. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/amazon-msk/alternatives/

## Named instead, most often (every category and segment added)

- Confluent Cloud: 30
- Redpanda: 27
- Apache Kafka: 18
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams: 6
- Upstash Kafka: 6
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: 5

## Streaming platforms

**Small business**: 68 of 84 answers did not name Amazon MSK (Amazon MSK is #9 of 16 at 2%).

- Redpanda: first choice in 15 of those 68
- Confluent Cloud: first choice in 11 of those 68
- Upstash Kafka: first choice in 6 of those 68
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams: first choice in 5 of those 68
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub: first choice in 5 of those 68
- NATS JetStream: first choice in 5 of those 68
- StreamYard: first choice in 4 of those 68
- NATS: first choice in 3 of those 68

**Mid-market**: 57 of 84 answers did not name Amazon MSK (Amazon MSK is #5 of 11 at 2%).

- Apache Kafka: first choice in 9 of those 57
- Redpanda: first choice in 8 of those 57
- Confluent Cloud: first choice in 6 of those 57
- Dacast: first choice in 2 of those 57
- YouTube Live: first choice in 2 of those 57
- Aiven for Apache Kafka: first choice in 1 of those 57
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams: first choice in 1 of those 57
- Apache Pulsar: first choice in 1 of those 57

**Enterprise**: 47 of 84 answers did not name Amazon MSK (Amazon MSK is #5 of 10 at 4%).

- Confluent Cloud: first choice in 13 of those 47
- Apache Kafka: first choice in 9 of those 47
- Redpanda: first choice in 4 of those 47
- Aiven for Apache Kafka: first choice in 3 of those 47
- Amazon MSK Provisioned: first choice in 1 of those 47
- Bizzabo: first choice in 1 of those 47
- Confluent BYOC: first choice in 1 of those 47
- WarpStream: first choice in 1 of those 47

Published under CC BY 4.0. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.