Apache Pulsar

Apache Pulsar is an open-source, cloud-native messaging and streaming platform designed for high-performance, scalable, and resilient data communication. Originally developed by Yahoo and now maintained by the Apache Software Foundation, Pulsar supports both real-time and batch messaging, making it ideal for modern data-driven applications across industries.

Features

• Multi-tenant architecture with resource isolation
• Native support for geo-replication across clusters
• Tiered storage for hot, warm, and cold data management
• Multiple subscription modes: exclusive, shared, failover, and key_shared
• Support for up to one million topics per cluster
• Built-in serverless computing via Pulsar Functions
• Pulsar IO connectors for seamless data integration
• Official client libraries for Java, Go, Python, C++, Node.js, and C#
• Automatic load balancing and topic bundle splitting
• Message compaction and topic-level retention policies

Capabilities

• Enables low-latency messaging (<10ms) and high-throughput streaming
• Supports distributed work queues and event-driven architectures
• Facilitates real-time analytics and data pipeline orchestration
• Provides fault tolerance with automatic client failover
• Integrates with Kubernetes for cloud-native deployments
• Offers flexible schema support and schema evolution
• Handles millions of messages per second across hundreds of nodes
• Allows fine-grained access control and authentication

Benefits

• Simplifies application architecture with unified messaging and streaming
• Scales horizontally without data reshuffling
• Reduces operational complexity with built-in replication and load balancing
• Enhances reliability and availability across geographic regions
• Supports diverse use cases from IoT to financial services
• Promotes developer productivity with rich APIs and tooling
• Maintains open-source governance and community-driven innovation
• Enables cost-effective data storage and processing