Vert.x and Akka are both polyglot event-driven application frameworks. Akka is based on the actor model of concurrency using message passing between actors. Vert.x uses an event bus for communication and relies on Hazelcast for distributed communication. While Vert.x does not have recovery systems, Akka supports flexible recovery through various persistence systems. The creator of Vert.x respects Akka and sees the two frameworks working together in reactive applications.