Need to remove Akka Framework from project due to licensing changes

Question

I have recently joined a new company and have been assigned to a project that consists of technologies such as Scala, SNMP, Akka Framework, Kafka, Kubernetes, and Spark. However, Lightbend recently announced a change in licensing for Akka Framework, from the open-source Apache 2.0 to the source-available Business Source License (BSL) 1.1. Due to this change, I am tasked with assessing the difficulty involved in removing Akka Framework from the project and finding suitable alternatives. Can anyone provide insightful information on how to undertake such a task? What are the best alternatives available to Akka Framework, and how do they compare in terms of features, performance, and scalability? Additionally, I would like to know how to evaluate the difficulties involved when removing a framework of this nature from a large project. I am relatively new to these technologies and transitioning from a background in Java, Spring, and REST APIs, so any detailed insights would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

Pekko is a fully-compatible re-build of the latest Open Source version of Akka from the Apache Foundation. Porting to Pekko requires changes to libraries and imports, but few (if any) code changes.

The caveat is that libraries that use Akka may not have Pekko equivalents available. There is a growing number of libraries that have been ported, but it some cases it may be necessary to download open source Akka libraries and manually port them to Pekko.