Redpanda vs Census Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
Serverless
- Multi-tenant AWS, GCP
- 100 MB/s max write throughput
- 300 MB/s max read throughput
Bring Your Own Cloud
- In your cloud AWS, Azure, GCP
- 2 GB/s max write throughput
Enterprise Edition
- Built-in HTTP proxy & schema registry
- Prometheus support
Free
- 500,000 monthly active rows (MAR) for connections
- 3,500 monthly active rows (MAR) for activations
- 5,000 monthly model runs (MMR) for transformations
Standard
Popular- Unlimited users
- 15-minute syncs
- 700+ fully managed connectors
- 200+ fully managed activation destinations
- Integration for dbt Core™
- Role-based access control
- Access to Fivetran REST API
- Access to SSH tunnels for encryption
Enterprise
- 1-minute syncs
- Fivetran Activations' Audience Hub
- Enterprise database connectors
- Custom roles
- VPN tunnels (annual contract only)
- SCIM/user provisioning
- Pick any cloud provider (GCP, AWS, Azure)
- Hybrid deployment option
Business Critical
- Customer-managed keys for encryption
- PCI DSS Level 1 certification
- Private networking options
Redpanda vs Census FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Redpanda uses hybrid pricing, while Census goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Redpanda: They're positioning as the leaner, faster alternative to Kafka and Confluent — free tier undercuts Confluent's entry cost entirely, but the custom pricing on BYOC and Enterprise signals they're not chasing bargain-bin buyers. This is a middle-to-premium play aimed at infra teams who are tired of Kafka's operational overhead and want something simpler without going full-managed-and-locked-in like Confluent Cloud. Census: Opaque custom pricing across all paid tiers signals they're not trying to win on being the cheapest option — they're positioning against tools like Hightouch and Segment as a data activation layer for teams already invested in a modern data stack. The free tier and 14-day trial per connection are the low-friction entry points to get teams hooked before the sales motion kicks in.
Still deciding? See the best Redpanda alternatives or the best Census alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for Redpanda and Census and let you know when something moves.