Keen
The fully managed event streaming platform
About Keen
Keen is a managed event streaming and analytics platform for developers, built on Apache Kafka, Storm, and Cassandra. It lets teams collect events through a REST Streams API, store them with encryption, query them with a Compute API, and ship white-labeled in-app dashboards to their own customers. Keen has been owned by subscription billing company Chargify (now Maxio) since 2020 and is still sold as a standalone product.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Fully managed Kafka-based event pipeline removes the need to run your own streaming infrastructure
- Covers the whole event lifecycle in one platform: collection, storage, querying, and visualization
- White-labeled embedded dashboards suit customer-facing analytics in SaaS products
- Mature REST API with SDKs for many languages and an open source visualization library
- Transparent published pricing with clear overage rates ($1 per 5,000 events)
- Native link to Chargify (Maxio) for events-based billing
Cons
- No free tier; the entry plan starts at $149/mo for 250,000 events
- Overage charges on events and queries can add up for high-volume apps
- Product development appears slow: the company blog has not been updated since 2021
- Smaller ecosystem and community than newer analytics platforms such as PostHog or Mixpanel
- Data retention is capped at two years outside custom plans
Key Features
Streams API
Collect real-time event data from web, mobile, server, and IoT sources through a REST API and SDKs.
Persistent storage
Stores raw event data with multi-layer AES encryption and two years of retention on standard plans.
Compute API
Run counts, sums, funnels, and other analysis queries over stored events programmatically.
Cached queries and datasets
Precompute frequently used queries and datasets so dashboards load quickly at scale.
Data Viz library
Open source JavaScript library for building white-labeled charts and dashboards embedded in your own app.
Dashboard Creator
Build branded interactive dashboards without code and share them with stakeholders or customers.
Data Explorer
Point-and-click interface for ad hoc querying and visualizing event data.
S3 streaming
Replicate raw event data into your own Amazon S3 bucket for warehousing or backup.
Role-based access
Unlimited scoped access keys and role-based permissions for teams and customer-facing embeds.
Chargify integration
Feed event data into Chargify (Maxio) for usage- and events-based billing.
Pricing
- 250,000 events per month
- 5,000 queries per month
- 2 years of data retention
- 5 cached queries and 5 cached datasets
- Data Explorer and Dashboard Creator
- Role-based access
- S3 streaming add-on (+$100/mo)
- 3,500,000 events per month
- 20,000 queries per month
- 2 years of data retention
- 50 cached queries and 50 cached datasets
- S3 streaming included
- Custom SSL
- 48-hour response SLA
- Custom event and query limits
- Custom data retention
- Enterprise support and integration services
- Invoice billing on annual contract
Best For
Customer-facing metrics
SaaS companies embed white-labeled usage dashboards directly in their product so customers see their own data.
Product analytics
Engineering teams track user actions and feature usage through custom events and analyze them with the Compute API.
Events-based billing
Teams stream usage events to Keen and pass them to Chargify (Maxio) to bill customers on consumption.
Connected devices and IoT
Hardware companies collect telemetry from devices in the field to spot failures and memory leaks before outages.
Business operations reporting
Operations teams replicate data from tools like Salesforce and Zendesk into Keen for unified reporting.
Similar Tools
Databox
Connect all your data and track performance in one place
RudderStack
Open-source customer data platform for warehouse-native data pipelines
Preset
AI-Native BI Built on Apache Superset
Stripe Billing
Recurring payments and subscription management
Text2Infographic
Text to infographic in ~2 minutes with AI
Tracardi
Open-source customer data platform for real-time engagement