Get Kafka-Nated Ep 7: Redpanda vs Kafka with Tristan Stevens

Get Kafka-Nated Ep. 7

Thursday, September 25th 2025

16:00 BST

17:00 CEST

11:00 EDT

Guest Focus: VP Global Customer Success at Redpanda Data, former Cloudera streaming expert

Tristan Stevens from Redpanda Data will be joining our host Hugh Evans. Tristan brings a unique perspective, having led customer success for Hadoop ecosystems at Cloudera and now shaping next-generation streaming platforms at Redpanda.

What we’ll cover:

• Redpanda vs Kafka: what “Kafka without the complexity” really means in practice
• The real-world pain points customers face running Kafka in production
• Why enterprises are making the switch from established Kafka deployments to Redpanda
• Lessons from leading $285M ARR platform migrations at Cloudera and how they apply to streaming adoption today
• How the streaming infrastructure space is evolving (Kafka, Redpanda, Pulsar, Kinesis) and where innovation opportunities lie
• A practical framework for engineering leaders evaluating streaming platforms today
• If you’ve got topics you’d like us to explore, want to be a guest on the show, or have feedback on today’s episode, reach out to us. We’re always looking for new voices and perspectives from the Kafka community.