DataStax Astra Streaming is a managed cloud service for data streaming and event stream processing, powered by Apache Pulsar. It brings streaming, publish-subscribe messaging, and queuing together, and supports real-time event processing and change data capture. Teams can manage tenants, topics, connectors, functions, and subscriptions through the Astra Portal, APIs, or related tools. Applications connect through open-source Apache Pulsar client APIs; the service runs Pulsar 3.1 and recommends that version or higher. Included sink connectors cover Astra DB and Cassandra, Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Cloud Storage, Elasticsearch, BigQuery, JDBC databases, and Snowflake. Source options include Kafka, AWS Kinesis, generated data, and Debezium for several databases. Shared tenants combine Pulsar authentication and authorization with Astra organization roles, and connections use TLS. Shared clusters have specified tenant, namespace, topic, message-size, and throughput limits. A free plan is listed at 0.00 USD per free; paid charges are usage-based, with rates varying by region and usage.
Who it is for
It suits developers and organizations building streaming or event-processing workloads, from individual developers and small businesses to enterprise teams. Users needing private connectivity should note that it is available for Streaming Capacity Units, not shared clusters.
What is good
- Supports streaming, pub/sub, queuing, and change data capture.
- Offers a free plan.
- Includes a broad range of source and sink connectors.
- Supports C#, Golang, Java, Node.js, Python, and Spring Boot.
- Connections use authentication, authorization, and TLS.
What to know first
- Custom source and sink connectors are not supported.
- Experimental connectors are not fully supported or tested.
- Shared-cluster throughput guardrail is 5,000 messages per second per topic.
- Private connectivity is unavailable for shared clusters.
Verdict
A free option and broad connector support make Astra Streaming relevant to teams building Pulsar-based streaming systems. Check shared-cluster limits and connector coverage against your workload before choosing a plan.
DataStax Astra Streaming plans and pricing
All plansCompared on event streaming platforms
- Free plan
- Yes
- Deployment model
- cloud
- Stream processing
- Yes
- Schema registry
- Yes
- Supported client languages
- C#, Golang, Java, Node.js, Python, Spring Boot
