# Redpanda

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/streaming/redpanda/

A C++ Kafka-compatible engine sold as Serverless or bring-your-own-cloud, publishing throughput, partition and SLA ceilings for every tier and no price for any of them.

## Who it suits

Knowing the ceilings before you talk to anyone. It publishes throughput, partitions and SLA for both tiers — 100 MB/s and 5,000 partitions on Serverless, 2 GB/s and 112,500 on Bring Your Own Cloud — which is more capability detail than the others put on a pricing page at all.

Consider something else if You need to know what it costs. The pricing page carries no currency figure anywhere: not a rate, not a plan fee, not a starting-from. Every comparison here is on capability alone. RBAC, OIDC and audit logging are also BYOC-only, and BYOC is annual commitment.

## iScore

71 / 100 (80% interval 60–82), rank 1 of 4 in streaming — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every streaming peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/streaming/redpanda/alternatives/

- Price: 79 (52–100), weight 36%, 2 of 6 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: egress_overage_price, free_offer_type, minimum_paid_price, storage_price
- Capacity and limits: 63 (40–85), weight 29%, 1 of 1 criteria scored
- Trust and compliance: 50 (32–68), weight 21%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Evidence: 100 (100–100), weight 14%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Credit card to start: No ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Pricing model: Not published. The pricing page names two tiers, Serverless and Bring Your Own Cloud, and states throughput, partition and SLA ceilings for each — but no rate, no unit and no monthly figure appears anywhere on it. Serverless is described as pay-as-you-go or annual commit; BYOC as annual commitment only. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Infrastructure

- Uptime SLA: 99.9% on Serverless, 99.99% on Bring Your Own Cloud. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Auth

- SAML single sign-on: Limited ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Audit logs: Audit logging arrives on Bring Your Own Cloud. Serverless lists Kafka ACLs and SSO with Google or GitHub and no audit trail. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Streaming

- Throughput ceiling: 100 MB/s write and 300 MB/s read on Serverless; 2 GB/s write and 4 GB/s read on Bring Your Own Cloud — a twentyfold step between the two tiers. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Partition limit: 5,000 partitions on Serverless, 112,500 on Bring Your Own Cloud. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Compliance

- Role-based access control: Serverless offers Kafka ACLs and SSO with Google or GitHub only. Role-based access control, audit logging and OIDC arrive on Bring Your Own Cloud. ([source](https://www.redpanda.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

## Compared with

- [Redpanda vs Confluent Cloud](https://inetgeek.com/compare/confluent-cloud-vs-redpanda/)
- [Redpanda vs Amazon MSK](https://inetgeek.com/compare/aws-msk-vs-redpanda/)
- [Redpanda vs WarpStream](https://inetgeek.com/compare/warpstream-vs-redpanda/)