Choose Kafka for compatibility, Pub/Sub for everything new.

Both close real gaps this course hadn't covered before.

Managed Service for Apache Kafka

Real, open-source-compatible clusters, Google handles brokers & rebalancing, tiered storage

Memorystore

Redis, Memcached, now Valkey-compatible — sub-millisecond caching & sessions

Choose Managed Kafka specifically when genuine Kafka API compatibility is required — an existing app or Kafka Connect integration. Otherwise, Pub/Sub's simpler operational model wins for new systems.