Stream Governance Packages, Features, and Limits

This page provides an overview of Stream Governance packages, including how to enable or delete them, regions mappings, and feature support available with each package type.

Getting started: enable or upgrade

Ready to get started using Stream Governance in your Confluent Cloud environments? Skip to the Quick Start for Schema Management on Confluent Cloud, which begins with explaining how to choose a stream governance package when you add a cloud environment and enable Schema Registry, Stream Catalog, and Stream Lineage.

If you first want to learn more about package options, pricing, features, and how they work, read on! This page goes in depth on Stream Governance packages and features.

Packages

Stream Governance is available in two package offerings, which you select at the time you add a cloud environment:

• Essentials: Starting at $0 cost per hour, provides the fundamentals for getting started; including Schema Registry with 100 free schemas and support for all Confluent Cloud regions, stream catalog with auto-technical metadata ingestion, tags metadata, UI, REST API, and most features in stream lineage. (After the first 100 free schemas, pricing is $0.002 per schema per hour on Essentials.)
• Advanced: Starting at $1 per hour, provides enterprise-grade features for mission-critical workloads, including Schema Registry with 20,000 included schemas and a 99.99% uptime SLA, stream catalog with everything in Essentials plus business metadata and GraphQL API, and stream lineage with everything in Essentials plus point in time lineage and searchable lineage graph. The Advanced package also includes support for Data Contracts on Confluent Cloud.

Tip

The schema limits mentioned above apply to the total number of schema versions across all subjects. On Essentials, you can have 100 total schema versions across all subjects; on Advanced, you can have 20,000 total schemas across all versions. Therefore; using the Advanced package as an example; it would be possible to have one subject with 20,000 schemas.

Full details on pricing and limits for Confluent Cloud are available on the website at Confluent Cloud pricing for Stream Governance.

Stream Governance packages are enabled per cloud environment, so you can have multiple environments with different package types.

How to enable Schema Registry or upgrade a Stream Governance package

As mentioned above, you select a Stream Governance package as a part of adding a cloud environment. You must choose either Essentials or Advanced. If you choose Essentials, you can upgrade to Advanced later, if needed.

Upgrade using the Cloud Console

From the Confluent Cloud Console, these options are available for a given environment or feature:

Once you choose a package for an environment, you cannot downgrade, but you can upgrade from Essentials to Advanced by choosing Upgrade now on the right panel. Features that specifically require an upgraded Stream Governance package provide an upgrade option when you hover over the feature on the right panel. (For example, Business metadata requires the Advanced package.)

Upgrade using the Confluent CLI

To upgrade to an environment from Essentials to Advanced, use confluent schema-registry cluster upgrade. For example, this command upgrades env-abc123 from the Essentials to the Advanced package:

confluent environment update env-abc123 --governance-package advanced

Use the REST API

To upgrade from Essentials to Advanced using the Confluent Cloud REST APIs, see Update an Environment in the Confluent Cloud API reference.

Features by package type

Essentials	Advanced
Stream quality (Schema Registry and validation) 99.5% uptime SLA 100 schemas included ($0.002 per schema per hour, after 100 free schemas per environment) Supports all Confluent Cloud regions	Stream quality (Schema Registry and validation) 99.99% uptime SLA 20,000 schemas included Supports all Confluent Cloud regions
Stream Catalog (data organization and discoverability) Auto-technical metadata ingestion Tags metadata Confluent Cloud Console and REST API	Stream Catalog (data organization and discoverability) All existing Essentials features + Business metadata GraphQL API
Track Data with Stream Lineage on Confluent Cloud (data origin and tracking) Real-time data streams lineage Graphical UI of event streams and data relationships Live metrics and metadata inspection	Track Data with Stream Lineage on Confluent Cloud (data origin and tracking) All existing Essentials features + Point-in-time lineage Lineage search
	Schema rules for Data Contracts on Confluent Cloud

Resilience in Schema Registry and Stream Governance

• The Schema Registry cluster is a multi-zone cluster where all nodes are set to leader eligible.
• All Schema Registry nodes are behind a Confluent Cloud Load Balancer.
• The storage used by the Schema Registry cluster is also a multi-zone store, protecting schema data from zonal failures.

Cloud providers and region support

Stream Governance Essentials and Advanced packages are available in all Confluent Cloud regions.

You select a Stream Governance package as a part of adding a cloud environment. The Schema Registry cluster is automatically assigned to the same region as the first Kafka cluster deployed in an environment. This Schema Registry region does not change, it persists regardless of clusters created in other regions or deleted. The Schema Registry region determines where Schema Registry and Stream Catalog services will run, and corresponding metadata is stored.

Delete a Schema Registry cluster

You cannot delete a Schema Registry cluster directly. The Schema Registry cluster is auto-deleted if you delete an environment.

Related content

• Add a cloud environment shows you how to get started with Stream Governance.
• Confluent Cloud pricing for Stream Governance gives details on pricing and limits.