Difference Between Apache Kafka and Camel (Broker vs Integration)

Kafka is a message broker. It is comparable with other message brokers like ActiveMQ, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus etc. Camel is an integration middleware. It is more comparable to Apache ServiceMix.

Apache Kafka : Is a streaming processing platform. It is based on massively scalable publish subscribe message queue architecture. There are many other platforms which are based on JMS publish subscribe model, which could do the same(with some exceptions). Some of the most popular are Apache-Activemq, RabbitMq

Apache Camel : Is a message oriented middleware. It has implemented almost all the Enterprise Integration Patterns.

You can use Apache Camel with Apache Kafka. Or you can use Apache Kafka without Apache Camel also.

They are two totally different things.

Think about Camel as an interface definition tool where you can define endpoints or channels where messages fly in. But they are abstract. Compare Camel with Spring Integration for instance.

Kafka can provide those messages, so it can implement those abstract channels or endpoints. But so can ActiveMQ and others.