head to head · open source
kafka vs Sequin
kafka has 33,750 GitHub stars, 15,521 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Sequin has 2,203 stars, 149 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. kafka leads on adoption by 1,432% (33,750 vs 2,203 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 | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 149 |
| 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, written in Java and Scala, for organizations that need high performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission critical applications.
read the full kafka overview →
About Sequin
Sequin is an open source change data capture platform for Postgres. It lives in the Postgres ecosystem and reads database changes, then sends those changes to streams, queues, search indexes, and other endpoints. The project is written in Elixir and released under the MIT license.
read the full Sequin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kafka or Sequin more popular?
kafka has 33,750 GitHub stars and Sequin has 2,203. 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 (33,750 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Sequin if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.