head to head · open source
kafka vs Sequin
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars, 15,657 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Sequin has 2,223 stars, 153 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. kafka leads on adoption by 1,435% (34,117 vs 2,223 stars). kafka is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Sequin is written in Elixir under MIT. kafka has attracted 46% as many forks as stars, Sequin 7%. kafka was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (kafka, streaming), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| kafka | Sequin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-02-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 153 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kafka if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Sequin if
- You want the Sequin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Sequin fits your workflow better
About kafka
Apache Kafka is an open source distributed event streaming platform used by thousands of companies for high performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission critical applications. You need to have Java installed. We build and test Apache Kafka with Java versions 17 and 25. The release parameter in javac is set to 11 for the clients and streams modules, and 17 for the rest, ensuring compatibility with their respective minimum Java versions. Similarly, the release parameter in scalac is set to 11 for the streams modules and 17 for the rest. Scala 2.13 is the only supported version in…
read the full kafka overview →
About Sequin
Documentation · Website · Discord · Slack · Blog Sequin Sequin is the fastest change data capture (CDC) platform for Postgres. Sequin makes it easy to stream Postgres to streaming platforms, queues, search indexes, and more (e.g. Kafka, GCP Pub/Sub, another Postgres, etc.). You can backfill existing rows and stream new changes in real time. Sequin is a standalone Docker container that you can deploy next to your Postgres database. For production deployments on AWS, see the deployment/ directory for Terraform infrastructure as code templates. Sequin is open source. To help us make this project great, tell us what…
read the full Sequin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kafka or Sequin more popular?
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars and Sequin has 2,223. kafka has the larger community by that measure.
Are kafka and Sequin free?
Both are open source. kafka is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Sequin under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kafka and Sequin?
kafka is written in Java and Sequin in Elixir. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kafka or Sequin?
Choose kafka if you want the larger community (34,117 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Sequin if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.