# Apache Pulsar Cluster

Source: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/product/pulsar-cluster/

## Indicative from-price range

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Apache Pulsar Cluster on 6 servers: about $144 to $673 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Peak throughput (MB/s): 200; Total topic/partition count: 500; Total retention storage (GB): 1000; Number of tenants: 1). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $144 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $294 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $381 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $384 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $397 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $398 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $1,573 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west).

Reference workload:
- Peak throughput (MB/s): 200
- Total topic/partition count: 500
- Total retention storage (GB): 1000
- Number of tenants: 1

Price snapshot: 2026-10-19. Currency: USD. FX snapshot: 2026-10-19.

Configuration: Low end: 6 x basic-2vcpu-4gb (DigitalOcean, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, about $24 per server per month). High end: 6 x rise-m (OVHcloud, 12 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, about $112 per server per month).

Methodology: This range is generated automatically from public provider price lists. It has not been reviewed by a person, it is not a quote, and it may differ from the total the calculator chooses for your own workload with its AI step. Method: the calculator's offer shortlist for the reference workload (the same ranking it builds before the AI step, up to 12 offers across providers; 12 here) is priced at its monthly list price in USD. The low end is the cheapest of the per-provider from-prices below and the high end is the median server of the combined shortlist, each multiplied by 6, the smallest baseline topology (minimal-cluster). The from-price for each provider applies the same method to that provider's own shortlist (the calculator's ranking restricted to that provider), so it is the cheapest server that ranking offers there, not a recommendation. Prices are taken from the price snapshot dated 2026-10-19; prices quoted in EUR are converted with the ECB reference rate dated 2026-10-19. Servers with fewer than 2 vCPU or less than 4 GB RAM are not priced. Only server rental list prices for the product's own servers are counted: dependencies, licences, support, traffic charges, taxes and setup fees are not included.

Price sources:
- [Amazon Web Services](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/us-east-1/index.json)
- [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- [Google Cloud](https://cloudbilling.googleapis.com/v1/services/6F81-5844-456A/skus)
- [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/_resources/app/data/app/live_data_en_EUR.json)
- [Microsoft Azure](https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices)
- [OVHcloud](https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/order/catalog/public/eco?ovhSubsidiary=FR)
- [Servers.com](https://www.servers.com/products/scalable-bare-metal)

Apache Pulsar is a distributed publish-subscribe messaging and streaming platform, originally built at Yahoo, that separates stateless message brokers from durable storage handled by Apache BookKeeper so each layer can scale independently.

## Baseline topologies

- minimal-cluster: 6 nodes minimum; roles: pulsar-broker, pulsar-bookie, pulsar-zookeeper
- scaled-cluster: 9 nodes minimum; roles: pulsar-broker, pulsar-bookie, pulsar-zookeeper

## What drives the cost

- Peak throughput (MB/s): Peak aggregate produce throughput in megabytes per second. Drives broker CPU and bookkeeper write throughput requirements.
- Total topic/partition count: Total number of topics and partitions. Drives broker memory for managed ledger caches and bookkeeper journal parallelism.
- Total retention storage (GB): Total data retention across all topics. Drives bookkeeper ledger storage capacity; tiered storage offload can reduce hot-tier requirements.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does it cost to self-host Apache Pulsar Cluster?

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Apache Pulsar Cluster on 6 servers: about $144 to $673 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Peak throughput (MB/s): 200; Total topic/partition count: 500; Total retention storage (GB): 1000; Number of tenants: 1). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $144 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $294 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $381 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $384 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $397 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $398 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $1,573 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west). This is an automatically generated indicative figure from public price lists (price snapshot 2026-10-19), not a quote.

### What drives the cost of self-hosting Apache Pulsar Cluster?

The sizing inputs the calculator uses for Apache Pulsar Cluster are: Peak throughput (MB/s); Total topic/partition count; Total retention storage (GB). Cost also depends on the number of servers and the provider chosen.

### What is the minimum number of servers for Apache Pulsar Cluster?

The smallest baseline topology in the calculator's profile for Apache Pulsar Cluster is minimal-cluster (6 servers). Other baseline topologies: scaled-cluster (9 servers minimum). The reference range above is computed for 6 servers.

Size Apache Pulsar Cluster for your own workload: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/?product=pulsar-cluster

## Sources

- https://pulsar.apache.org/
- https://pulsar.apache.org/docs/
- https://github.com/apache/pulsar