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It sounds like Vectorized is a streaming platform built on top of Redpanda. Is that the right way to think about it? If yes, then why not build it directly on t

It sounds like Vectorized is a streaming platform built on top of Redpanda. Is that the right way to think about it? If yes, then why not build it directly on top of Kafka instead?

agallego 6y ago
We kind of started on a different note. We wanted to solve some fundamental problems (no Zookeeper - similar to KIP-500) and most of all we wanted a single binary we can ship around, something that is easy to run. I think people LOVE the kafka _api_ but they have a hard time operating clusters at scale. So we decided to keep the same API but solve the problem of operational complexity.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
  > I think people LOVE the kafka _api_ but they have a hard time operating clusters at scale. That is very true, and this is what you should emphasise. Wish you the best of luck! The actual speed of Kafka has rarely been a concern (but huge numbers of partitions are, which makes rebalancing a pain) in my experience, in fact it was mostly overkill. But operational complexity was definitely an issue!
  - agallego 6y ago
    Will do. Thank you. Do you have any thoughts here. How would you say it differently. We tried that on the landing page
    - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
      Landing page isn't bad, when you scroll the important points are there, but you have scroll. I'm not a "landing page optimisation guru", so take this with a grain of salt, but I would change it as follows. Without scrolling, all the text thats displayed is this: "Redpanda A Kafka® API compatible streaming platform for mission-critical workloads. Try Redpanda today" It tells me what it is, which is good. It does not tell me why it is better, for that I have to scroll. Kafka is already suited for mission-critical workloads, so that is not a unique value proposition. Maybe: "Redpanda - 100% Kafka API compatible, but without the headaches. Forget Zookeeper, forget rebalancing issues. Instead, enjoy reliable message delivery, 10x faster speed and ultra-low latencies due to our thread-per-core architecture." Something like that, plus a visible "call to action" button, maybe "try it out" or "download". Could also think about a pretty graph comparing latencies or smth. People love pretty graphs.
      - agallego 6y ago
        Sweet thanks! passing this to the designer.
        agallego 6y ago
        @MrBuddyCasino - I tried incorporating the design on the site we launched 5 seconds ago. lmk what you think (alex @ vectorized.io ) is my email in case you feel inclined :D thank you tho.

It sounds like Vectorized is a streaming platform built on top of Redpanda. Is that the right way to think about it? If yes, then why not build it directly on top of Kafka instead?

agallego 6y ago

We kind of started on a different note. We wanted to solve some fundamental problems (no Zookeeper - similar to KIP-500) and most of all we wanted a single binary we can ship around, something that is easy to run. I think people LOVE the kafka _api_ but they have a hard time operating clusters at scale. So we decided to keep the same API but solve the problem of operational complexity.

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
> I think people LOVE the kafka _api_ but they have a hard time operating clusters at scale. That is very true, and this is what you should emphasise. Wish you the best of luck! The actual speed of Kafka has rarely been a concern (but huge numbers of partitions are, which makes rebalancing a pain) in my experience, in fact it was mostly overkill. But operational complexity was definitely an issue!
- agallego 6y ago
  Will do. Thank you. Do you have any thoughts here. How would you say it differently. We tried that on the landing page
  - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    Landing page isn't bad, when you scroll the important points are there, but you have scroll. I'm not a "landing page optimisation guru", so take this with a grain of salt, but I would change it as follows. Without scrolling, all the text thats displayed is this: "Redpanda A Kafka® API compatible streaming platform for mission-critical workloads. Try Redpanda today" It tells me what it is, which is good. It does not tell me why it is better, for that I have to scroll. Kafka is already suited for mission-critical workloads, so that is not a unique value proposition. Maybe: "Redpanda - 100% Kafka API compatible, but without the headaches. Forget Zookeeper, forget rebalancing issues. Instead, enjoy reliable message delivery, 10x faster speed and ultra-low latencies due to our thread-per-core architecture." Something like that, plus a visible "call to action" button, maybe "try it out" or "download". Could also think about a pretty graph comparing latencies or smth. People love pretty graphs.
    - agallego 6y ago
      Sweet thanks! passing this to the designer.
      - agallego 6y ago
        @MrBuddyCasino - I tried incorporating the design on the site we launched 5 seconds ago. lmk what you think (alex @ vectorized.io ) is my email in case you feel inclined :D thank you tho.