Confluent, a pioneer in the realm of data streaming, has been recognised as a Leader by Forrester Research in The Forrester Wave: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2023 report. The report highlighted that in today's dynamic business environment, streaming data has evolved from a nice-to-have feature into an indispensable asset for real-time organisational operation.

Streaming data platforms equip organisations with the ultimate advantage of rapid reflexes, bolstering their ability to tackle intraday business challenges and harness emergent opportunities, as per Mike Gualtieri's assertions in The Streaming Data Platforms Landscape, Q3 2023. Gualtieri noted that such platforms allow enterprise architects to establish a real-time enterprise intelligence network across the organisation. This is achieved through the seamless integration of diverse data originating from a varied range of business applications.

Real-time data commands modern society, facilitating new customer experiences, optimising business operations, and driving innovation across products and services. Conventional data infrastructures, however, are unprepared for this new reality. Traditional, passive data stores create a tangled web of point-to-point connections that obstruct the integration of data across applications, systems and teams, thereby impeding business innovation.

Jay Kreps, Cofounder and CEO of Confluent, commented, “Done right, data streaming platforms initiate a virtuous cycle of innovation where data products—composed of real-time streams from all sectors of an organisation—are repurposed to construct applications and systems more efficiently. Confluent was established to address a critical requirement for reliable, scalable data streams, and we believe our designation as a leader in this category affirms our approach to delivering a comprehensive, enterprise-ready data streaming platform."

Central to the data streaming movement is Apache Kafka, the de facto standard and most successful open source technology for streaming data. It is utilised by hundreds of thousands of developers, including several from the Fortune 500. Confluent caters to everything enterprises require to implement Kafka use cases with security and reliability. With its unique data streaming platform, it enables organisations to overcome data barriers, thereby easing the reuse and access to data streams for countless use cases.

The report concluded that Confluent is indeed a streaming force to be reckoned with. Confluent scored the highest possible marks in 10 evaluated criteria including connections, movement, management, fault-tolerance, vision, innovation, roadmap, partner ecosystem, community, and revenue.

Confluent's key strength lies in its delivery of cloud-native versions of Kafka that are augmented with developer tools to simplify the creation and management of streaming applications. The Forrester Wave: Streaming Data Platforms, Q4 2023 report added that Confluent suits customers who seek a solution based on Apache Kafka, offers cloud portability, and equips them with ample capabilities for both streaming analytics and processing.