Enterprise-grade Kafka under your control

Axual is a European Kafka platform that helps organizations manage event streaming, governance, security, and access control from one platform. It supports on-premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments.

Open-source Kafka works well at the start. As adoption grows, governance, security, compliance, and operational complexity become harder to manage across teams and environments.

Axual centralizes governance, access control, schema management, and operations so teams can scale Kafka without losing control.

Both are built on Apache Kafka; the difference is what sits around it. Axual has no proprietary core. It’s open Apache Kafka and Strimzi with governance, self-service and multi-tenancy included, so if you ever leave, you keep a standard Kafka cluster. You can run it yourself or have Axual manage it in a European cloud, and Axual is an independent company based in the Netherlands. See how Axual compares → Why Axual

Running open-source Kafka yourself works well for a few teams. As more teams join, the work shifts from running clusters to governing them: managing access, schemas, ownership, approvals, and audit trails, often by hand through tickets. Axual adds that layer on top of the same open-source Kafka and Strimzi, so you keep full control without building and maintaining it yourself. Already running Strimzi? You can keep it and add Axual’s governance on top.

You can run Axual on-premises, in your own cloud account, across both, or as a managed service on Scaleway, a European cloud provider.

You choose where Axual runs and who operates it. Self-hosted, it runs on your own Kubernetes, on-premises or in your cloud account: no data passes through Axual and you hold the encryption keys. Managed, Axual runs it for you on Scaleway, a European cloud provider. Either way, your supplier, support and data stay within Europe. Banks, grid operators, government agencies and healthcare networks use Axual where this is a requirement.

Yes. Developers can run a complete Axual Platform locally using Docker Compose and test Kafka, governance, security, schemas, connectors, and self-service capabilities on their laptop.

No, not at all. It’s built for the requirements of regulated organisations, which makes it a very strong fit anywhere many teams share Kafka and need control over access and data, including retail, manufacturing and logistics.

Pricing depends on your deployment model, support requirements, and scale. Contact us for a tailored quote based on your Kafka environment and operational needs.