Head-To-Head Review: Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) vs. Agora (NASDAQ:API)

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) and Agora (NASDAQ:API) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Confluent and Agora’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Confluent	-56.99%	-44.16%	-14.52%
Agora	-61.62%	-13.65%	-12.47%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Confluent and Agora’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Confluent	$776.95 million	11.43	-$442.75 million	($1.47)	-19.33
Agora	$141.54 million	1.80	-$87.22 million	($0.87)	-2.72

Agora has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Confluent. Confluent is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agora, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Confluent and Agora, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Confluent	1	8	16	0	2.60
Agora	0	1	0	0	2.00

Confluent currently has a consensus target price of $30.64, indicating a potential upside of 7.85%. Agora has a consensus target price of $3.20, indicating a potential upside of 35.02%. Given Agora’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Agora is more favorable than Confluent.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

78.1% of Confluent shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.4% of Agora shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.1% of Confluent shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Confluent has a beta of 0.91, meaning that its share price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Agora has a beta of 0.04, meaning that its share price is 96% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Confluent beats Agora on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Confluent

Confluent, Inc. operates a data streaming platform in the United States and internationally. The company provides platforms that allow customers to connect their applications, systems, and data layers, such as Confluent Cloud, a managed cloud-native software-as-a-service; and Confluent Platform, an enterprise-grade self-managed software. It offers connectors for existing applications, and IT and cloud infrastructure; Apache Flink services that allows teams to create reusable data streams that can be delivered real-time; ksqlDB, a data-in-motion database that allows users to build data-in-motion applications using a few SQL statements; stream governance, a managed data governance suite that is designed for the intricacies of streaming data, which allows teams to accelerate data streaming initiatives without bypassing controls for risk management and regulatory compliance; and stream designer which builds streaming data pipelines visually. In addition, the company offers professional services comprising packaged and residency offerings; education offerings consisting of instructor-led and self-paced training and certification guidance, technical resources, and access to hands-on training and certification exams; and certification programs. It serves banking and financial services industries, as well as retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, automotive, communication service providers, gaming, public sector, insurance, and technology industries. The company was formerly known as Infinitem, Inc. and changed its name to Confluent, Inc. in September 2014. Confluent, Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

About Agora

Agora, Inc. provides real-time engagement platform-as-a-service (RTE-PaaS) in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company's RTE-PaaS offers developers with software tools to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence functionalities. Its products include video calling, voice calling, interactive live streaming, chat, and signaling; and extensions, which comprise interactive whiteboard, recording, 3D spatial audio, AI noise suppression, analytics, and extensions marketplace products to enable developers to launch RTE in specific use cases. The company also provides Flexible Classroom that offers a low-code application platform as a service; and App Builder, a no-code application platform. Its real-time engagement products are delivered through its software-defined real-time network, which is a virtual network overlay on top of the public internet. The company serves social, entertainment, gaming, education, enterprise solutions, e-commerce, financial services, healthcare, and IoT industries. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is based in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.