Confluent Inc's Competitiveness
A competitive positioning analysis and financial ratio benchmarking of Confluent Inc (CFLT) against its publicly traded competitors: sales growth, net income, profitability, valuation and market share, plus each peer's market capitalization, revenue, income and employees. Free below: the top 5 peers. Subscriber access adds the full competitor list and CSV downloads.
Key Findings: Confluent Inc vs Its Competitors
- TTM: Trailing 12-month revenue of 1,166M vs 1,783,677M combined for tracked competitors (0.1% combined share).
- Trending: Latest-quarter revenue run-rate is accelerating (+8.1% annualized vs trailing 12 months), vs accelerating (+11.8%) for its tracked peer group.
- Growth: Confluent Inc generated 20.0% revenue growth year over year in Q4 2025, vs 11.4% for its tracked competitors combined.
- Profitability: Its -25.2% net margin compares with 21.0% for the peer group.
- Peer revenue share: Confluent Inc accounted for 0.1% of combined revenue among its tracked peer group, up from 0.1% a year earlier.
- Peer differentiation: Revenue per employee of $0.36M compares with $0.72M for the peer group (0.5x).
Every figure above is sourced and cited in detail further down this page (Market Structure, Profitability & Cost Structure, Productivity vs Peers).
CFLT Sales vs. its Competitors, Q4 2025
Confluent Inc reported revenue growth of 19.99 % year on year in Q4 2025, above its competitors' combined revenue growth of 11.40 %.
With a net margin of -25.15 %, Confluent Inc reported lower profitability than its competitors (21.04 %).
Confluent Inc generated 0.06 % of the combined sales of its peer group, up from 0.06 % a year earlier.
Confluent Inc vs. its Competitors, Q4 2025
Revenue growth, year on year
Net margin
Revenue run-rate vs trailing 12 months
TTM net margin
TTM = trailing twelve months. Run-rate annualizes the latest quarter (×4) and compares it to TTM. In millions of $. High-Confidence Competitors are named as a competitor directly in an SEC filing; Similar-Size Competitors are the closest peers by market-cap rank within the same industry; Similar Growth & Profitability Competitors are the closest peers by combined revenue growth, operating margin and ROIC, all independent of the competitor list.
TTM revenue, latest-quarter run-rate and net income/margin benchmarked across Confluent Inc and its 4 competitor groupings. Available under Commercial License.
| Entity | TTM Revenue | Rev Run-rate vs TTM |
|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| Competitors combined | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| High-Confidence Competitors (1) | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
| Similar Growth & Profitability (3) | $12,345M | +12.3% · Accelerating |
TTM revenue, run-rate and net margin benchmarking across Confluent Inc's competitor groups requires a Commercial License.
For context: the Software & Programming industry grew revenue 16.0% year over year, combined, vs 20.0% for Confluent Inc. Confluent Inc's share of combined industry revenue moved from 0.09% to 0.10%, a gain of 0.00 percentage points.
Confluent Inc's Competitor Quality Breadth
Share of each group, trailing 12 months: profitable (net margin > 0), expanding (revenue growth > 0), growing faster than the industry's own median, and financially distressed (Piotroski F-Score of 2 or below).
| Entity | Profitable | Expanding | Above Industry Growth | Distressed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Competitors combined (17) | ||||
| High-Confidence Competitors (1) | ||||
| Similar Growth & Profitability (8) | 0.00 % (0 of 8) | 100.00 % (8 of 8) | 100.00 % (8 of 8) | 28.60 % (2 of 7) |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Altman Z-Score is not shown here: it is not populated in the underlying data for any company. Percentages are of companies in each group that report the relevant metric, not of the full group size.
CFLT Stock Performance relative to its Competitors
CFLT Stock Performance relative to High-Confidence Competitors
CFLT Stock Performance relative to Similar Growth & Profitability Competitors
5 Best-Performing Tracked Competitors, Trailing 12 Months
| # | Competitor | TTM Share Price Return | vs U.S.A. 500 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Akamai Technologies Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 2 | Amazon com Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 3 | Amplitude Inc | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 4 | Elastic N v | 282.9% | Outperformed |
| 5 | Microsoft Corporation | 282.9% | Outperformed |
TTM share price return and U.S.A. 500 outperformance for Confluent Inc's best-performing tracked competitors requires a Commercial License.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months.
Confluent Inc's Comment on Competition and Industry Peers
Our primary competition, especially on premise, is internal IT teams that are attempting to ?do it themselves? using open source software. Our offering is substantially differentiated from Apache Kafka, and therefore companies using only open source tools do not benefit from our full product offering. As the move to the cloud increases, we expect that competition from open source alternatives will decrease as companies increasingly adopt fully-managed cloud solutions.
Our principal competitors in the cloud are the well-established public cloud providers such as AWS that generally compete in all of our markets. These enterprises are developing and have released fully-managed, data ingestion, and data streaming products, such as Azure Event Hubs (Microsoft Corporation), Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka, Amazon Kinesis and Amazon DynamoDB Streams (AWS), and Cloud Pub/Sub and Cloud Dataflow (Google).
On premise there are a number of vendors with legacy products that have pivoted into this space including TIBCO Streaming, Cloudera Dataflow, Redhat (IBM) AMQ Streams, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Streaming.
We believe the principal competitive factors for companies in our industry include the following:
Focus on data in motion, characterized by:
the ability to provide an end-to-end operationalized customer journey;
mindshare and ability to drive innovation in the category of data in motion; and
the ability to support customers at scale with mission critical use cases. Product differentiation, characterized by:
Cloud-native capabilities
operate at significant scale;
offer elasticity;
offer end-to-end security; and
offer flexible pricing, including pay-as-you-go delivery.
Completeness of offering
a complete platform for data in motion (not just low-level streaming);
rich SQL-based stream processing;
integrated data governance capabilities; and
ease of integration with connectors to a wide variety of existing applications and IT and cloud infrastructure.
Availability of offering
as a fully-managed service in the three leading public clouds;
as a Kuberenetes-based software offering for the private cloud;
in legacy on-premise data centers as a software product; and
ability to span all of these customer environments in one unified data-in-motion platform. General competitive factors, including:
size of customer base and level of market adoption;
price and total cost of ownership;
brand awareness and reputation;
quality of professional services and customer support;
strength of sales and marketing efforts; and
adherence to industry standards and certifications. On the basis of the factors above, we believe that we compare favorably to our competitors. However, some of our actual and potential competitors have advantages over us, such as substantially greater financial, technical, and other resources, including larger sales forces and marketing budgets, greater brand recognition, broader distribution networks and global presence, longer operating histories, more established relationships with current or potential customers and commercial partners, and more mature intellectual property portfolios. They may be able to leverage these resources to gain market share and prevent potential customers from purchasing our products. Additionally, we expect the industry to attract new entrants, who could compete with our business and introduce new offerings. As we scale and expand our business, we may enter new markets and encounter additional competition.
Publicly Traded Peers of Confluent Inc
Revenue and income for trailing 12 months, in millions of $, except employees| Company | Market Cap | Revenues |
|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | 10,654.36 | 1,165.84 |
| Alphabet Inc | 4,174,720.44 | 445,866.00 |
| Microsoft Corporation | 3,795,216.66 | 331,839.00 |
| Amazon com Inc | 2,683,773.45 | 776,231.00 |
| Oracle Corporation | 397,830.00 | 73,266.00 |
| Sap Se | 246,009.75 | 41,216.00 |
| SUBTOTAL | 11,944,713.15 | 1,786,521.96 |
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Sources: Confluent Inc's official press releases and regulatory filings; CSIMarket.com's market research; and the financial filings and press releases of the other companies cited.
Updated on:
Focus of this report: publicly traded companies. Ten additional tables on Confluent Inc versus competitors, including market share analysis, are in the navigation menu under Competition. To download the tables, please subscribe.
Confluent Inc's Competitors Named by the Company
Competitive relationships identified from SEC filings and corroborating sources, each with a basis and confidence.| Competitor | Basis | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | Named by the company | 85% |
Filing basis, confidence, active dates and source counts for Confluent Inc's named competitors require a Commercial License.
Methodology: relationships are extracted from SEC filings (named-competitor disclosures) and corroborating sources. Named by the company = explicitly disclosed as a competitor; Inferred = derived from corroborating signals. Confidence reflects evidence strength.
Confluent Inc's Business Segment Mix vs Peers
Revenue by operating segment or division, as named and reported by each company. Segment names are the filer's own and are not standardized across companies. Do not assume a same-named or similarly-named segment is defined identically between two companies. Shares are of each company's own total revenue and are not required to sum to 100% (intersegment revenue, unallocated items).| Company | Largest Segment |
|---|---|
| Alphabet Inc | Google Services 85.60 % |
| Microsoft Corporation | Productivity and Business Processes 42.19 % |
| Amazon com Inc | North America 57.75 % |
| Oracle Corporation | Cloud and Software Business 83.96 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Software 45.22 % |
Source: operating segment revenue as reported in each company's SEC filings (10-K/10-Q), via the CSIMarket API, leaf-level reportable segments only (parent roll-up segments are excluded where sub-segments are separately disclosed).
Confluent Inc's Productivity vs Peers Comparison
Revenue and income per employee, trailing 12 months, in $; market cap in millions of $| Company | Market Cap | Revenue / Employee | Income / Employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | 10,654 | 359,716 | -91,106 |
| Alphabet Inc | 4,174,720 | 9,645,768 | 5,283,078 |
| Microsoft Corporation | 3,795,217 | 1,488,067 | 599,771 |
| Amazon com Inc | 2,683,773 | 492,532 | 85,838 |
| Oracle Corporation | 397,830 | 519,617 | 134,184 |
| Sap Se | 246,010 | 374,691 | 74,592 |
| PEERS TOTAL | 11,934,059 | 717,784 | 214,127 |
Confluent Inc's Geographic Revenue Exposure vs Peers
Revenue by country/region as reported in each company's most recent filing. Disclosure granularity varies by filer (some report by country, others by broad region) and is shown as disclosed.| Company | Largest Market |
|---|---|
| Alphabet Inc | United States 47.77 % |
| Microsoft Corporation | US 51.47 % |
| Oracle Corporation | Americas 63.46 % |
| International Business Machines Corporation | Americas 49.04 % |
| Adobe Inc | Americas 58.69 % |
Source: revenue geography as reported in each company's SEC filings (10-K/10-Q), via the CSIMarket API. Percentages are of that company's own total consolidated revenue for its most recent reported period.
Confluent Inc's Position in Industry Market Structure
Market-capitalization share and concentration across all 236 companies in Confluent Inc's industry classification, broader than the peer set above. Market cap in millions of $.Confluent Inc ranks #0 of 236 companies by market capitalization in its industry, holding 0.00 % of total industry market cap. The industry's Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) is 2,661, indicating a highly concentrated market structure (U.S. antitrust guidance: below 1,500 unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately concentrated, above 2,500 highly concentrated).
| Rank | Company | Market Cap | Industry Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Corporation | 3,756,759 | 50.30 % |
| 2 | Palantir Technologies Inc | 486,305 | 6.51 % |
| 3 | Oracle Corporation | 388,902 | 5.21 % |
| 4 | Sap Se | 268,701 | 3.60 % |
| 5 | Crowdstrike Holdings Inc | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 6 | Salesforce Inc | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 7 | Shopify Inc | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 8 | Full Truck Alliance Co Ltd | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 9 | Servicenow Inc | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 10 | Cloudflare Inc | 1,234 | 5.2% |
| 0 | Confluent Inc | 10,640 | 0.00 % |
Market cap and industry share for the rest of Confluent Inc's industry peers requires a Commercial License.
Source: CSIMarket API (daily market-structure computation) across CSIMarket's industry classification, market capitalization as of 2026-03-16.
Confluent Inc's Profitability & Cost Structure
Trailing 12-month margins from SEC-filed financials. Operating margin is compared to the Software & Programming industry median; gross margin, EBITDA margin and capital intensity are compared to the live industry average (343 companies).| Metric | Company | Industry | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Margin | 74.35 % | 64.28 % (avg) | +10.1 pp |
| Operating Margin | -32.60 % | industry median | -30.1 pp |
| EBITDA Margin | -22.93 % | 2.53 % (avg) | -25.5 pp |
| Capital Intensity (Capex / Revenue) | 2.24 % | 4.79 % (avg) | -2.5 pp |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. SG&A and R&D as a share of revenue have limited coverage as this data is backfilled and appear only where reported. Higher capital intensity is not inherently negative; it reflects the industry's asset requirements.
Confluent Inc's Valuation vs Competitive Position
Valuation multiples vs the Software & Programming industry average (343 companies, excluding loss-making/negative-equity outliers), alongside returns on capital for context on whether a premium or discount lines up with measurably stronger or weaker returns.| Metric | Company | Industry Average | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | - | 39.5x | - |
| EV / EBITDA | - | 21.7x | - |
| P/B | 8.6x | 5.4x | +3.2x |
| Return on Equity | -26.98 % | industry aggregate | -49.54 % |
| Return on Invested Capital | -11.42 % | -0.26 % (avg) | -11.16 % |
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. A valuation premium or discount is not, by itself, a judgment of over- or under-valuation. Compare it against the return and growth context shown elsewhere on this page.
Confluent Inc's Multi-Year Financial Trajectory
Fiscal-year revenue growth, operating margin, return on invested capital and P/E, as reported in SEC filings.| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | - | - | 32.48 % | 24.08 % | 21.04 % |
| Operating Margin | - | -78.96 % | -61.68 % | -43.52 % | -32.60 % |
| Return on Invested Capital | - | -16.86 % | -17.73 % | -14.21 % | -11.42 % |
| P/E | - | - | - | - | - |
Source: CSIMarket API, fiscal-year figures. P/E is this company's own historical ratio at each fiscal year end and can swing sharply around an earnings trough: that is real, not a data error.
Confluent Inc's Strategic Group Map
Every company in Confluent Inc's industry and named-competitor list, plotted by trailing 12-month revenue growth and operating margin. Confluent Inc is shown in red; its closest peers by combined growth, margin and ROIC (the Similar Growth & Profitability group above) are labeled.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Extreme outlier values (from near-zero-revenue companies) are excluded from the plotted cloud but never from the highlighted company or its labeled peers.
Confluent Inc's Competitive Forces (Porter's Five Forces)
Only the forces this data can support honestly are shown; the other three are marked as such rather than guessed.| Force | Assessment | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive Rivalry | Low | Industry HHI of 2,661 (see Industry Market Structure & Concentration above) |
| Barriers to Entry | Lower than typical for the industry | Capital intensity (capex / revenue) of 2.24 % vs industry average 4.79 % (see Profitability & Cost Structure above) |
| Supplier Power | Not covered on this page | See Confluent Inc's dedicated suppliers page for concentration and dependency data |
| Buyer Power | Not covered on this page | See Confluent Inc's dedicated customers page for concentration and dependency data |
| Threat of Substitutes | - | No systematic data source for cross-product substitution exists in this system; not estimated |
Note: this is a partial, data-grounded application of the framework, not a complete strategic assessment. Rivalry and barriers-to-entry readings are mechanical translations of the HHI and capital-intensity figures shown elsewhere on this page, not independent judgments.
Confluent Inc's Industry Attractiveness & Competitive Strength
A CSIMarket composite, not a standard field: each axis is an equal-weighted average of three factors already shown elsewhere on this page (industry growth, industry profitability and rivalry for attractiveness; relative market share, profitability and growth vs industry for strength). Disclosed as a designed methodology, not a precision measurement.
Confluent Inc falls in the Medium attractiveness / Medium strength cell: Selective.
Source: CSIMarket API, trailing 12 months. Each axis score is a simple 1(low)/2(medium)/3(high) average across its three inputs -- a transparent, disclosed simplification, not a validated academic scoring model.
Confluent Inc's SWOT
Every point below is a fixed rule applied to a metric already shown elsewhere on this page (Market Structure, Profitability, Valuation, Run-Rate, Stock Performance, Quality Breadth) not an independent strategic assessment. A blank quadrant means no rule was met, not that none apply.Strengths
- Latest-quarter revenue run-rate is accelerating (+8.1% annualized vs trailing 12 months).
Weaknesses
- Operating margin 30.1 points below the industry median.
- Return on equity 49.5 points below the industry aggregate.
- Underperforming the U.S.A. 500 over the trailing 12 months.
Opportunities
- Industry revenue growing at a healthy 11.6% median pace.
Threats
- Industry dominated by Microsoft Corporation, holding 50.30 % of industry market cap.
Methodology: mechanical, rule-based SWOT. Each bullet reuses a figure already sourced and cited elsewhere on this page; nothing here is generated narrative or independent analyst judgment.
Confluent Inc's Financial Strength vs Peers Comparison
Quick ratio, working capital, debt to equity and asset turnover, trailing 12 months| Company | Quick Ratio | Working Capital | Debt / Equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | 0.50 | 4.04 | 1.00 |
| Alphabet Inc | 0.55 | 2.13 | 0.13 |
| Microsoft Corporation | 0.13 | 1.31 | 0.11 |
| Amazon com Inc | 0.38 | 1.07 | 0.21 |
| Oracle Corporation | 0.72 | 1.12 | 2.83 |
| Sap Se | 0.47 | 1.16 | - |
Quick ratio = cash / current liabilities; working capital ratio = current assets / current liabilities; asset turnover = revenue / total assets. Peers in the Blank Checks industry are excluded.
Confluent Inc's Revenue and Income Growth vs Peers
Quarterly revenue and net income growth, year over year and quarter over quarter| Company | Period | Revenue Y/Y | Income Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | Q4 2025 | +20.0 % | - |
| Alphabet Inc | Q2 2026 | +24.2 % | +297.9 % |
| Microsoft Corporation | Q2 2026 | +17.7 % | +31.3 % |
| Amazon com Inc | Q2 2026 | +19.9 % | +244.9 % |
| Oracle Corporation | Q3 2026 | +24.0 % | +62.6 % |
| Sap Se | Q4 2025 | +7.7 % | +132.6 % |
| PEERS TOTAL | +18.6 % | +132.5 % |
Growth is shown only where both periods are positive. Peers in the Blank Checks industry are excluded.
Confluent Inc's Peers' Costs of Sales and Capital Expenditures
Context for revenue growth: peer costs and capex, year over year and quarter over quarter| Company | Period | Costs Y/Y | Capex Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | Q4 2025 | +15.9 % | +8.3 % |
| Alphabet Inc | Q2 2026 | +17.7 % | +100.1 % |
| Microsoft Corporation | Q2 2026 | +22.9 % | +109.6 % |
| Amazon com Inc | Q2 2026 | +18.5 % | +300.3 % |
| Oracle Corporation | Q3 2026 | - | +235.2 % |
| Sap Se | Q4 2025 | +8.0 % | - |
Confluent Inc's Returns and Turnover vs Peers
ROA, ROI and ROE (trailing 12 months), receivables and inventory turnover| Company | ROA | ROI | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | - | - | - |
| Alphabet Inc | 35.42% | 42.01% | 50.84% |
| Microsoft Corporation | 19.76% | 22.48% | 34.22% |
| Amazon com Inc | 15.21% | 23.40% | 30.50% |
| Oracle Corporation | 7.73% | 9.84% | 44.45% |
| Sap Se | 10.41% | 13.84% | 16.25% |
ROA = net income / total assets; ROI = net income / investments; ROE = net income / equity; turnover ratios use trailing 12 month revenue (receivables) and cost of sales (inventory).
Confluent Inc's Valuation vs Peers
P/E, price to sales, PEG, price to cash flow and price to book| Company | P/E | Price / Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Confluent Inc | - | 9.14 |
| Alphabet Inc | 17.03 | 9.36 |
| Microsoft Corporation | 28.37 | 11.44 |
| Amazon com Inc | 19.79 | 3.46 |
| Oracle Corporation | 20.79 | 5.43 |
| Sap Se | 34.35 | 5.97 |
| PEERS AVERAGE | 22.44 | 6.69 |
P/E = price / diluted EPS (trailing 12 months); PEG = P/E divided by EPS growth; the average row divides the peers' combined market cap by their combined income, sales, cash flow and equity.