Confluent is more than just Kafka though, it's also got a schema registry that lets you validate your messages, as well as an enhanced REST API for interaction with the Kafka service.
Confluent is run by the same folks from LinkedIn who built Kafka originally (it talks about this a bit more in the article), so you're in good hands with regard to the product's vision remaining consistent to the original innovation.
Yes I know who Confluent is, and their open-source distribution already includes the schema registry and HTTP interface if you want it: https://www.confluent.io/product/compare/
Plenty of hosted Kafka providers these days, it's not that difficult to run and the advantage of Confluent as the original authors is really just marketing. They're also working on a Kafka operator (one of many in the market) to run it even easier on Kubernetes.
