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Build vs Buy Streaming for Real-Time RAG: 2026 Guide

Production RAG isn't an API problem. It's a streaming systems problem. This guide breaks down the real TCO of building your own CDC, processing, and embedding infrastructure vs. buying a managed platform, with a decision matrix for custom build, MSK, Redpanda, and Confluent.


How To Process Unstructured Documents and Images in Real Time With Event-Driven Streaming Pipelines

Unstructured data (PDFs, scans, images) breaks every assumption built for structured pipelines. This guide walks through a four-stage streaming architecture for turning messy binary blobs into RAG-ready chunks and embeddings, with patterns for rate limits, cost control, and fault tolerance.


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