Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK)
Amazon MSK is a fully managed Apache Kafka service on AWS that handles the heavy lifting of running Kafka clusters. It manages broker provisioning, scaling, and maintenance, letting you focus purely on building streaming data pipelines and real-time analytics without worrying about the underlying infrastructure or patching cycles.
This setup suits teams already committed to the AWS ecosystem who need reliable Kafka without self-managing servers. The main friction point is the lack of a free tier, meaning every byte processed incurs cost starting at $0.0015 per GB. You pay for usage from the first request, so small-scale experiments or low-volume testing will still generate immediate billing charges.
- Free tier No
- Starting price from $0.0015 per GB
- Regions 15 · 6 continents
- SLA uptime 99.99%
- Compliance 13 certifications
- Provider health A
Decision score
Computed from catalog breadth, pricing, provider reliability (uptime & SLA), community signal, and ecosystem (compliance & regions). Weighted equally.
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- C5
- CSA STAR
- FedRAMP
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- HIPAA
- ISO 27001
- ISO 27017
- ISO 27018
- ISO 9001
- PCI DSS
- SOC 1 Type II
- SOC 2 Type II
- compute99.99%
- database99.99%
- networking99.99%
- storage99.99%
15 regions across 6 continents
- Africa
- Asia
- Europe
- North America
- Oceania
- South America
Pricing tiers 41
| Tier / Plan | Price | Unit | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| USE1-Kafka.DataRetrieval.Tiered | $0.0015 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaServerless-PartitionHours | $0.0015 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.PrivateConnectivity.BytesProcessed | $0.006 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-DataChannel-ProcessedBytes-S3Destination | $0.008 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-DataChannel-ProcessedBytes-S3TablesDestination | $0.0100 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.In-Bytes | $0.0100 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.PrivateConnectivityHours | $0.0225 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.t3.small | $0.0456 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaServerless-Out-Bytes | $0.0500 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.Storage.Tiered | $0.0600 | per GB/month | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaReplication-Processed-Bytes | $0.0800 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.Throughput | $0.0800 | MiBps-Mo | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaServerless-StorageHours | $0.1000 | per GB/month | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaServerless-In-Bytes | $0.1000 | per GB | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.Storage.GP2 | $0.1000 | per GB/month | us-east-1 |
Show all 41 pricing rows (26 more)
| Tier / Plan | Price | Unit | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| USE1-Express.Storage | $0.1000 | per GB/month | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.mcu.general | $0.1100 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.large | $0.2040 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.large | $0.2100 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaReplication-ReplicatorHours | $0.3000 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.large | $0.4080 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.xlarge | $0.4080 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.xlarge | $0.4200 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-KafkaServerless-ClusterHours | $0.7500 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.2xlarge | $0.8160 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.xlarge | $0.8160 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.2xlarge | $0.8400 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.4xlarge | $1.63 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.2xlarge | $1.63 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.4xlarge | $1.68 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.4xlarge | $3.26 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.8xlarge | $3.26 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.8xlarge | $3.36 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.12xlarge | $4.90 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.12xlarge | $5.04 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.8xlarge | $6.53 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m7g.16xlarge | $6.53 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.16xlarge | $6.73 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.12xlarge | $9.79 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Kafka.m5.24xlarge | $10.08 | per hour | us-east-1 |
| USE1-Express.m7g.16xlarge | $13.06 | per hour | us-east-1 |
Prices in USD. Micro-prices are quoted per 1M units; "< $0.000001" marks rates below our stored precision. Subject to change — check the provider's official page.