Supported Versions and Interoperability

This topic provides the supported versions and interoperability of Confluent Platform and its components.

Confluent Platform Versions

Every released major or minor version is supported for two years from the date of its general availability.

Confluent Platform Release Date End of Support Date
1.0.0 February 25, 2015 February 25, 2017
2.0.x December 7, 2015 December 7, 2017
3.0.x May 24, 2016 May 24, 2018
3.1.x November 15, 2016 November 15, 2018
3.2.x March 2, 2017 March 2, 2019
3.3.x August 1, 2017 August 1, 2019
4.0.x November 28, 2017 November 28, 2019
4.1.x April 16, 2018 April 16, 2020
5.0.x July 31, 2018 July 31, 2020
5.1.x December 14, 2018 December 14, 2020
5.2.x March 28, 2019 March 28, 2021
5.3.x July 19, 2019 July 19, 2021

Important

  • The end of support date only applies to minor versions, for example 5.3.x. Maintenance versions follow the same two year lifecycle.
  • Each version of Confluent Platform includes several component services which are only compatible in that specific Confluent Platform version. There are exceptions, including clients and Confluent Control Center, which can be used across versions. All services included in Confluent Platform are supported, including Apache Kafka® and its subcomponents: Kafka brokers, Apache ZooKeeper™, Java and Scala clients, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect.

Preview Releases

Features designated with “preview” status in this documentation are not intended for production use. They should only be used for evaluation and non-production testing purposes or to provide feedback to Confluent. Confluent encourages customers to submit questions and suggestions about preview features using the Confluent Support Portal. Preview features are not “Supported Software” under Confluent’s support policies. Additionally, Confluent may make changes to preview user experience and APIs before they are released for production use.

Confluent Platform and Apache Kafka Compatibility

Confluent Platform Apache Kafka
2.0.x 0.9.0.x
3.0.x 0.10.0.x
3.1.x 0.10.1.x
3.2.x 0.10.2.x
3.3.x 0.11.0.x
4.0.x 1.0.x
4.1.x 1.1.x
5.0.x 2.0.x
5.1.x 2.1.x
5.2.x 2.2.x
5.3.x 2.3.x

Operating Systems

Confluent Platform and clients support these operating systems.

Operating System 5.3.x 5.2.x 5.1.x 5.0.x 4.1.x 4.0.x 3.3.x
RHEL/CentOS 6.x (deprecated) yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
RHEL/CentOS 7.x yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Debian 7 (deprecated) no no no no no no no
Debian 8 yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Debian 9 yes no no no no no no
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (deprecated) no no no no no no no
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (deprecated) yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS yes no no no no no no
  • Windows is not currently supported. Windows users can download and use the ZIP and TAR archives, but must run the JAR files directly.
  • macOS 10.13 and later is supported for testing and development purposes only.
  • Control Center requires many open RocksDB files. Set the ulimit for the number of open files (ulimit -n) to a minimum value of 16384.

Confluent Control Center

You can use the Confluent Control Center with compatible Confluent Platform versions.

Confluent Control Center Confluent Platform
3.0.x 3.0.x
3.1.x 3.1.x
3.2.x 3.2.x
3.3.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x
4.0.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 4.0.x
4.1.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x
5.0.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 5.0.x
5.1.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x
5.2.x 3.2.x, 3.3.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x, 5.2.x
5.3.x 3.3.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x, 5.2.x, 5.3.x

Java

Important

  • Use the latest patch release of each major version of Java to ensure known security vulnerabilities are addressed.
  • Starting with Confluent Platform 5.0, the minimum required version is Java 8. Java 7 or earlier versions are no longer supported.
Confluent Platform Java Version Minimum Recommended Version
5.3.x 1.8.0_60, 11.0_2 JDK 1.8 → u31 or later, JDK 11.0.0 or later
5.2.x 1.8.0_60, 11.0_2 JDK 1.8 → u31 or later, JDK 11.0.0 or later
5.1.x 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
5.0.x 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
4.1.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
4.0.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
3.3.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
3.2.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
3.1.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
3.0.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
2.0.x 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later
1.0.0 1.7.0_60, 1.8.0_60 JDK 1.7 → u51 or later, JDK 1.8 → u31 or later

KSQL

You can use KSQL with compatible Confluent Platform and Apache Kafka® versions.

KSQL version 5.3
Apache Kafka version 0.11.0 and later
Confluent Platform version 3.3.0 and later

Scala

Confluent Platform Scala Version
1.0.0 2.10, 2.11
2.0.x 2.10, 2.11
3.0.x 2.10, 2.11
3.1.x 2.10, 2.11
3.2.x 2.10, 2.11
3.3.x 2.11
4.0.x 2.11
4.1.x 2.11
5.0.x 2.11
5.1.x 2.11
5.2.x 2.11, 2.12
5.3.x 2.11, 2.12

ZooKeeper

Confluent Platform ZooKeeper
3.0.x 3.4.6
3.1.x 3.4.8
3.2.x 3.4.9
3.3.x 3.4.10
4.0.x 3.4.10
4.1.x 3.4.10
5.0.x 3.4.13
5.1.x 3.4.13
5.2.x 3.4.13
5.3.x 3.4.14

Component Security

Kafka

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Audit log 2.0.x and later
Authentication via SASL/PLAIN 3.0.x and later
Authentication with SASL/Kerberos and SASL/PLAIN 2.0.x and later
Authentication with SASL/SCRAM 3.1.x and later
Authorization (Access control lists) 2.0.x and later
Integration with secured ZooKeeper 2.0.x and later
SSL Wire Encryption 2.0.x and later

Kafka Connect clients

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers 2.0.x and later

Apache Kafka Streams clients

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers 3.0.x and later

Apache ZooKeeper™

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Authentication with SASL/Kerberos and SASL/PLAIN 2.0.x and later
Authorization (Access control lists) 2.0.x and later

Confluent Control Center

Security Feature Confluent Platform
HTTPS 3.0.x and later

Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers:

  • User login with HTTP Basic Authentication
 3.0.x and later

REST Proxy

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers 3.1.x and later
HTTPS (SSL) for REST clients 3.0.x and later

Schema Registry

Security Feature Confluent Platform
Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers 3.0.x and later
HTTPS (SSL) for REST clients 3.0.x and later

Clients

Client Confluent Platform

.NET

  • Targets frameworks net451 and netstandard1.3.
  • Supported on the .NET Framework 4.5.1 and and .NET Core 1.0 and later.
  • Not supported on Mono.
 3.2.x and later

C/C++

  • greater than C99
  • greater than C++98
 3.1.x and later

Go

  • Golang greater than 1.2
  • librdkafka greater than 0.9.4
 3.1.x and later
Java See the supported Java versions.
JMS Client 3.2.x and later

Python

 3.0.x and later

Connectors

These connectors are supported by Confluent. For more information, see Connectors to Kafka.

Connector Confluent Platform
Confluent Replicator 3.1.x and later
Kafka Connect ActiveMQ Source Connector 4.0.x and later
Kafka Connect Cassandra Sink Connector 4.0.x and later
Kafka Connect Google Cloud Storage Sink Connector 4.1.x and later
Kafka Connect HDFS 2 Sink Connector 3.0.x and later
Kafka Connect Elasticsearch Sink Connector 3.0.x and later
Kafka Connect IBM MQ Source Connector 4.0.x and later
Kafka Connect JDBC Connector (Source and Sink) 3.0.x and later
Kafka Connect JMS Source Connector 4.0.x and later
Kafka Connect Amazon S3 Sink Connector 3.2.x and later
Kafka Connect Syslog Source Connector 4.0.x and later

Cross-Component Compatibility

Kafka Connect Workers

Confluent Platform 3.1 and earlier
Kafka Connect Workers must be a version lower or equal to the Kafka brokers (i.e. upgrade brokers first).
Confluent Platform 3.2 and later
Kafka Connect Workers that are included in Confluent Platform 3.2 and later are compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.0 and later.

Kafka Java Clients

Confluent Platform 3.1 and earlier
Kafka Java Clients must be a version lower than or equal to the Kafka brokers (i.e. upgrade brokers first). The minimum supported Kafka Java Client version is 0.8.
Confluent Platform 3.2 and later
Kafka Java Clients that are included in Confluent Platform 3.2 (Kafka version 0.10.2) and later are compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.0 and later.

Kafka Streams Clients

Confluent Platform 3.1 and earlier
Kafka Streams Clients must be a version lower than or equal to the Kafka brokers (i.e. upgrade brokers first).
Confluent Platform 3.2 and later
Kafka Streams Clients that are included in Confluent Platform 3.2 (Kafka version 0.10.2) and later are compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.1 and later.

Auto Data Balancing

Compatible with Confluent Platform 3.1.x brokers and later. Disk free space protection requires Confluent Platform 3.2.x or later.

Confluent C, C++, Python, Go and .NET

All versions of Confluent’s non-Java clients are compatible with all versions of Confluent Platform.

Schema Registry

Confluent Platform 3.1 and earlier
Schema Registry must be a version lower than or equal to the Kafka brokers (i.e. upgrade brokers first).
Confluent Platform 3.2 and later
Schema Registry that is included in Confluent Platform 3.2 and later is compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.0 and later.

REST Proxy

Confluent Platform 3.1 and earlier
REST Proxy must be a version lower than or equal to the Kafka brokers (i.e. upgrade brokers first).
Confluent Platform 3.2 and later
REST Proxy that is included in Confluent Platform 3.2 and later is compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.0 and later.

Docker and Orchestration Tools

Kubernetes

Confluent Operator simplifies running Confluent Platform on Kubernetes, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Operator implements the Kubernetes Operator pattern to deliver enterprise-ready, Kubernetes-native automation of deployment and key lifecycle operations. Refer to Confluent Operator Supported Environments for details about Confluent Operator and supported Kubernetes environments.

The following table describes the version compatibilities among Confluent Platform, Confluent Operator, and Kubernetes.

Operator Version Compatible Confluent Platform Versions Compatible Kubernetes Versions Release Date End of Support
1.6.x 5.5.x, 6.0.x 1.15 - 1.18 September 24, 2020 September 24, 2021
1.5.x 5.5.x 1.13 - 1.18 April 24, 2020 April 24, 2022 [1]
1.4.x 5.4.x 1.11 - 1.15 January 22, 2020 January 22, 2021 [2]
1.3.x 5.3.x 1.9 - 1.15 July 31, 2019 July 31, 2020 [3]
  • [1] Best-effort support for Operator 1.5.x will be provided until April 24, 2022 if and when feasible to do.
  • [2] Best-effort support for Operator 1.4.x will be provided until January 22, 2022 if and when feasible to do so.
  • [3] Best-effort support for Operator 1.3.x will be provided until July 31, 2021 if and when feasible to do so.

DC/OS

  • Confluent has partnered with Mesosphere to provide DC/OS packaging for Confluent Platform. This has been tested, evaluated, and successfully deployed with several customers, but there are still some scenarios that require non-standard configurations. Please contact Confluent Support if you have plans to deploy on top of DC/OS.
  • DC/OS Versions 1.7, 1.8, and 1.9 have been evaluated successfully with Confluent Platform.
  • All Confluent services except the core broker and ZooKeeper services are deployed as Marathon-managed Docker containers. There is minimal variation in that support across DC/OS versions.
  • There are two separate frameworks for the core broker service:
    • Framework version 1 (explicit versions range from 1.0.0 through 1.1.9 between April 2016 and May 2017). This framework supports Confluent Platform 3.0.1 through 3.2.1.
    • Framework version 2 (released as beta in May 2017). This framework supports Confluent versions 3.2.0 and later.

For more information, see the Mesosphere DC/OS documentation.

Docker

Optional: Docker version 1.11 or later running on a supported operating system. This is required if you are installing Confluent Platform by using the Docker images.

Web Browsers

The following web browsers are supported by Confluent Control Center and Confluent Cloud.

Browser Supported Version
Apple Safari Latest Stable
Google Chrome Latest Stable
Mozilla Firefox Latest Stable