I know Vertica has vkconfig to import data from Kafka. However, it seems like Confluent also has a connector that does the same. As their web site states: "Vertica Sink Connector for Confluent Platform - You can use the Kafka Connect Vertica Sink connector to export data from Apache Kafka topics to Vertica. The Vertica Sink connector periodically polls records from Kafka and adds them to a Vertica table."
Are the two connectors aim at doing the same tasks? If not, what are the differences?
At a high level, the difference in software is that the Vertica one is done on a periodic schedule
Kafka Connect is more real-time, depending on how you've configured it.
Of course, there also comes the details around installation, support, and licensing.
You should expect more Vertica-specific features from the Vertica importer than from Confluent, which may only focus on the bare minimum requirements to take Kafka records to DB events, and who knows is adding enhacements to that connector.
Worked and done a comparison of both Vertica and confluent Vertica sink connectors. Vertica inbuilt connector does not have the capability to handle Kafka tombstone messages(logged an enhancement request with Vertica ) and is slow with avro. Worked with confluent in fixing at least 15 bugs and enhancements and they improved and released latest version of vertica sink connector supporting most of the features. Working on licensing with confluent is the difficult part as they might not provide license to their connector pack unless the entire eco system to manage Kafka is bought
