head to head · open source
kafka vs Soketi
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars, 15,657 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Soketi has 5,633 stars, 364 forks, 142 open issues and last shipped 1.7 years ago. kafka leads on adoption by 506% (34,117 vs 5,633 stars). kafka is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Soketi is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. kafka has attracted 46% as many forks as stars, Soketi 6%. kafka was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Soketi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-03-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 364 |
| 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 Soketi if
- You want the Soketi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Soketi 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 Soketi
soketi Next gen, Pusher compatible, open source WebSockets server. Simple, fast, and resilient. 📣 🤝 Supporting Soketi is meant to be open source, forever and ever. It solves issues that many developers face the one of wanting to be limitless while testing locally or performing benchmarks. More than that, itt is also suited for production usage, either it is public for your frontend applications or internal to your team. The frequency of releases and maintenance is based on the available time, which is tight as hell. Recently, there were issues with the maintenance and this caused infrequent updates, as well as…
read the full Soketi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kafka or Soketi more popular?
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars and Soketi has 5,633. kafka has the larger community by that measure.
Are kafka and Soketi free?
Both are open source. kafka is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Soketi under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kafka and Soketi?
kafka is written in Java and Soketi in TypeScript. 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 Soketi?
Choose kafka if you want the larger community (34,117 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Soketi if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.