Confluent licensing is the set of terms under which Confluent sells its data streaming products built on Apache Kafka and Apache Flink. There are two commercial lines. Confluent Cloud is a fully managed service billed on usage. Confluent Platform is self-managed software sold as term subscriptions. Next to them sit components that cost nothing: Apache Kafka under the Apache 2.0 licence, and a group of Confluent-maintained components under the source-available Confluent Community License.[6] Confluent publishes its standard agreements and the documents they incorporate on one contracts page. Each document carries a last-updated date, and that date is its effective date.[1] The contracting party in the standard agreements is Confluent, Inc. of Mountain View, California.[2][3] Separate versions exist for customers buying from Confluent Europe Limited and for customers in Malaysia.[1] IBM completed its acquisition of Confluent, Inc. on 2026-03-17.[12] The contract documents retrieved for this article still name Confluent, Inc. as the contracting party. For the general models, see subscription and consumption licensing and open-source software licensing.
Editions
| Line | What is sold | How it is measured | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Cloud | Basic, Standard, Enterprise and Freight clusters (elastic); Dedicated clusters (pre-provisioned)[10] | eCKU-hours or CKU-hours, GB in and out, GB stored, plus add-on dimensions[10] | Confluent Cloud licensing |
| Confluent Platform | Subscription to Confluent Software with Apache Kafka and Apache Flink, plus add-ons such as connector packs, Health+ and Flink[5] | Node, Flink Node, Connector Pack[5] | Confluent Platform subscription licensing |
| Confluent Private Cloud | Confluent Platform plus Private Cloud Gateway, Intelligent Replication and CSFLE[5] | CPC Node, capped in cores, drives, storage and RAM[5] | Confluent Platform subscription licensing |
| Free components | Apache Kafka, clients, Ansible playbooks (Apache 2.0); Schema Registry, REST Proxy, ksqlDB, community connectors (Community License)[6] | No fee | Confluent Community License and open-source components |
Confluent Cloud publishes list rates. On the retrieval date a Standard cluster cost USD 0.75 per eCKU-hour, and Basic gave the first eCKU free, then charged USD 0.14.[15] Catalog: Basic cluster; Standard cluster; Enterprise cluster; Freight cluster; Dedicated cluster. Confluent Platform has no public price list.
Metrics
| Confluent term | Catalog row | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| eCKU | eCKU | Elastic capacity unit for Basic, Standard, Enterprise and Freight clusters, billed for the capacity used in each hour.[10] |
| CKU | CKU | Fixed, pre-allocated capacity unit for Dedicated clusters.[10] |
| Ingress, egress, storage | Data transfer; Kafka storage | Cost per GB written or read, and per GB stored per hour.[10] |
| CFU, CSU, task | CFU; CSU; Connect task | Flink compute per minute, ksqlDB per hour, managed connectors per task-hour.[10] |
| Node | Node | Each software instance of a Confluent Platform component on a physical or virtual machine.[5] |
| Flink Node | Flink Node | A group of up to 8 CPU cores for Confluent Platform for Apache Flink.[5] |
| Connector Pack | Connector Pack | Licence and support for up to five commercial connectors.[5] |
Counting / floors
Confluent Cloud. Billing for every component accrues hourly in UTC. Usage of less than an hour is billed as a full hour, and invoices are issued monthly in arrears.[9] For elastic clusters the customer pays for the highest number of eCKUs used in each hour. Once any capacity is used, a minimum applies. A cluster with zero consumption costs nothing.[10] Storage is billed on the volume after replication, not on the volume written.[10] Catalog: eCKU is billed on the hourly peak; Elastic clusters bill a minimum capacity once used, nothing at zero consumption; Storage is billed on the post-replication volume.
Confluent Platform. A Node is each running instance of a listed component: brokers, controllers, Connect workers, Schema Registry, ksqlDB, REST Proxy, Control Center and others. Producer and consumer applications that only use the client API are not Nodes.[5] Use may not exceed the quantity purchased.[5] Each Node is classified as Production, Pre-Production, Development or Disaster Recovery. Instances in hot standby count as Production.[5] If support is used on any component in a cluster, every component in that cluster must be under subscription.[5] Catalog: Confluent Platform is counted per Node, excluding client-only applications; Hot standby instances count as Production; Supporting one component pulls the whole cluster under subscription.
Which version applies. Each update to a Definitions and Rules document has its own Effective Date. It applies only to Orders entered into after that date. Earlier versions stay in force for Orders signed while they were current.[4][5] A licence manager should therefore keep the version that was current on each Order date. Catalog: Definitions and rules apply by Order date.
Virtualization & partitioning
Confluent does not count physical processors for Confluent Platform. A Node is counted per software instance, whether it runs on a physical or a virtual machine.[5] Cores matter in two places. A Flink Node is up to 8 CPU cores, where one core is a vCPU, a cloud core or a hyperthread. A Confluent Private Cloud Node may not exceed 56 cores, 24 drives, 50 TB of storage or 256 GB of RAM.[5] Catalog: Flink Nodes are sized in vCPUs or hyperthreads, up to 8 per Flink Node; A Confluent Private Cloud Node is capped by cores, drives, capacity and RAM. See virtualization and partitioning and processor and core licensing.
Cloud / BYOL
Confluent Cloud runs on AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. It can be bought directly or through those clouds’ marketplaces. A customer billed through a marketplace must run its data plane resources in that same cloud.[9] There is no right to bring a Confluent Platform subscription to Confluent Cloud. The reverse does exist in a narrow form: a Customer-Managed Confluent Platform for Confluent Cloud package licenses self-managed Connect, Replicator and Control Center for use only with Confluent Cloud. The Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) Service runs WarpStream agents in the customer’s own cloud account. Both are covered in Confluent Cloud licensing.
Programs
- Pay as you go and annual commitment. Pay as you go is billed monthly in arrears. An annual commitment is a minimum spend over a fixed term. In return the customer gets volume discounts, and usage above the commitment is billed at the discounted rate.[9]
- Developer License and Evaluation License. Confluent Platform’s commercial features are free without time limit on single-broker clusters used for development and testing. On multi-broker clusters they may be evaluated for 30 days.[11][6]
- Confluent Cloud Trial Usage. Free credits and Proof of Concept Orders are limited to non-production evaluation.[2]
- Support. Confluent Cloud support plans are priced as the greater of a monthly minimum or a percentage of usage.[13] Confluent Platform support comes at Gold or Platinum level. Platinum extends support for each version from two years to three.[14] Catalog: Confluent Cloud support plans; Confluent Platform Support Services (Gold and Platinum).
Licence keys and the open-core split
Confluent Platform components fall under one of three licences. The Confluent Enterprise License covers commercial features, the Confluent Community License covers community features, and Apache 2.0 covers the Apache Kafka core.[6] Commercial components need a valid licence key to start and read it from a shared licence topic. When an enterprise licence expires, the software stops functioning.[6] The Community License allows free use, modification and redistribution. The one thing it excludes is offering a competing online service that provides the software.[8] Confluent itself describes this licence as source-available rather than open source.[7] Catalog: Confluent Community License; Commercial components stop working when the enterprise licence key expires. See Confluent Community License and open-source components.
Contract terms
Restrictions. Confluent Software is licensed for the customer’s internal business operations. It may not be used for third-party training, software-as-a-service, time-sharing or service bureau use.[3] Affiliates may use what the customer bought, as long as combined use stays within the Order.[3] Confluent Cloud may not be resold or made available to third parties other than the customer’s Users.[2] Catalog: Confluent Software may not be used for SaaS, time-sharing or service bureau use; Affiliate and outsourcer use counts against the customer quantity; Confluent Cloud may not be resold or made available to third parties.
Fees. Platform Orders cannot be cancelled or refunded, and Confluent may suspend the licence if a customer fails to pay.[3] A Cloud customer may delete its services at any time but still owes its committed payments to the end of every Order.[2] Catalog: Deleting Cloud resources does not end committed payment obligations.
Audits and compliance
The Confluent Platform Agreement has a two-step compliance clause. On request, an officer of the customer must certify in writing that the customer complies with the agreement. Confluent may also audit usage on prior notice during business hours. Any underpayment is due at once, with interest of 1.5% per month. If the underpayment exceeds 5% of the cumulative fees already paid, the customer also reimburses the reasonable cost of the audit.[3] The Confluent License Agreement, which covers developer and evaluation use, also reserves an audit right.[11] Confluent may collect usage data, and some features can report telemetry. Customers may switch telemetry off. Confluent Basics is the exception: there, Health+ telemetry is a condition of the price.[3][5] Confluent Cloud usage is metered by the service itself and visible in the console and the Costs API.[9] Catalog: Confluent Platform audit: officer certification, interest and cost shift above 5%. See software license audit.
Out of scope
- Negotiated enterprise agreements, reseller terms and marketplace private offers, which override the online terms and are not public.
- Professional and Education Services, the OEM Framework Agreement and supplier terms.
- Data processing, security and privacy addenda.
- Apache Kafka and Apache Flink as Apache Software Foundation projects, except where Confluent documents state their licence.
- Litigation: no court case about Confluent licences was found with a primary court record.