Disclosed are a method and a computer program storage product for dynamically stabilizing a stream processing system. The method includes receiving at least one computing resource allocation target. A plurality of downstream processing elements and an upstream processing element are associated with at least one input buffer. Each of the downstream processing elements consumes data packets produced by the upstream processing element received on an output stream associated with the upstream processing element. A fastest input rate among each downstream processing element in the plurality of downstream processing elements is identified. An output rate of the upstream processing element is set to the fastest input rate that has been determined for the plurality of downstream processing elements.