Apache Kafka Clients¶
Programming languages you use to build applications that interact with Kafka provide a set of APIs and libraries. A Kafka client library provides functions, classes, and utilities that allow developers to create Kafka producer clients (Producers) and consumer clients (Consumers) using various programming languages. The primary way to build production-ready Producers and Consumers is by using your preferred programming language and a Kafka client library. The following programming languages include a client library for Kafka:
- Java: The official Java client library supports the Producer, Consumer, Streams, and Connect APIs.
The following official Confluent clients are derived from the open source librdkafka project:
- C/C++: A C/C++ client library supporting the Producer and Consumer APIs.
- Python: A Python client library supporting the Producer and Consumer APIs.
- Go: A Go client library supporting the Producer and Consumer APIs.
- .NET: A .NET client library supporting the Producer and Consumer APIs.
Additional open-source and community-developed Kafka client libraries are available for other programming languages. Some of these include Scala, Node.js, Ruby, Rust, JMS, PHP, and Elixir.
The core APIs in the Kafka client library are:
- Producer API: This API provides classes and methods for creating and sending messages to Kafka topics. It allows developers to specify message payloads, keys, and metadata and to control message delivery and acknowledgment.
- Consumer API: This API provides classes and methods for consuming messages from Kafka topics. It allows developers to subscribe to one or more topics, receive messages in batches or individually, and process messages using custom logic.
- Streams API: This API provides a high-level abstraction for building real-time data processing applications that consume, transform, and produce data streams from Kafka topics.
- Connector API: This API provides a framework for building connectors that can transfer data between Kafka topics and external data systems, such as databases, message queues, and cloud storage services.
- Admin API: This API provides functions for managing Kafka topics, partitions, and configurations. It allows developers to create, delete, and update topics and retrieve metadata about Kafka clusters and brokers.
In addition to these core APIs, the Kafka client library includes various tools and utilities for configuring and monitoring Kafka clients and clusters, handling errors and exceptions and optimizing client performance and scalability.
See Client guides for more information.
Client guides¶
See the following guides for details about each client.
Kafka Java Client
Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub
Java producer and consumer shipped with Apache Kafka.
Client versions and support timelines¶
Confluent official clients are available for:
Note
- The Kafka client version matches and maps to the version of Apache Kafka® that supports it. To learn more, see the Apache Kafka Clients Maven Repository.
- Confluent supports Kafka clients included with new releases of Apache Kafka® in the interval before a corresponding Confluent Platform release, and when connecting to Confluent Cloud.
Java¶
The matrix shown below follows the same support timeline as mentioned in the Confluent Platform and Apache Kafka Compatibility matrix. The Kafka clients are available for download on the org.apache.kafka/kafka-clients site.
| Java clients version | Release Date | Standard End of Support | Platinum End of Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5.x | August 25, 2023 | August 25, 2025 | August 25, 2026 |
| 3.4.x | May 4, 2023 | May 4, 2025 | May 4, 2026 |
| 3.3.x | November 4, 2022 | November 4, 2024 | November 4, 2025 |
| 3.2.x | July 6, 2022 | July 6, 2024 | July 6, 2025 |
| 3.1.x | April 5, 2022 | April 5, 2024 | April 5, 2025 |
| 3.0.x | October 27, 2021 | October 27, 2023 | October 27, 2024 |
| 2.8.x | June 8, 2021 | June 8, 2023 | June 8, 2024 |
| 2.7.x | February 9, 2021 | February 9, 2023 | February 9, 2024 |
| 2.6.x | September 24, 2020 | September 24, 2022 | September 24, 2023 |
| 2.5.x | April 24, 2020 | April 24, 2022 | April 24, 2023 |
| 2.4.x | January 10, 2020 | January 10, 2022 | January 10, 2023 |
| 2.3.x | July 19, 2019 | July 19, 2021 | July 19, 2022 |
| 2.2.x | March 28, 2019 | March 28, 2021 | March 28, 2022 |
| 2.1.x | December 14, 2018 | December 14, 2020 | December 14, 2021 |
| 2.0.x | July 31, 2018 | July 31, 2020 | July 31, 2021 |
| 1.1.x | April 16, 2018 | April 16, 2020 | April 16, 2021 |
- The end of support date applies to the stated minor version, and all maintenance versions associated with that minor version. For example, support for Kafka 2.6.4 ends on September 24, 2022.
- The two year support policy is standard. End of support is extended one year for Platinum support agreements.
librdkafka and Derived Clients¶
librdkafka is an open source community project available at: https://github.com/confluentinc/librdkafka.
Confluent maintains its own official, signed set of binaries for librdkafka, available to you here: https://packages.confluent.io/clients/.
| Programming Language | Library Name | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| C/C++ Client | librdkafka | Kafka C/C++ Client |
| Go Client | confluent-kafka-go | Kafka Go Client |
| .NET Client | confluent-kafka-dotnet | Kafka .NET Client |
| Python Client | confluent-kafka-python | Kafka Python Client |
| librdkafka Client Version | Release Date | Standard End of Support | Platinum End of Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.2.0 | July 13, 2023 | July 13, 2025 | July 13, 2026 |
| 2.1.0 | April 6, 2023 | April 6, 2025 | April 6, 2026 |
| 2.0.2 | January 24, 2023 | January 24, 2025 | January 24, 2026 |
| 1.9.0 | June 16, 2022 | June 16, 2024 | June 16, 2025 |
| 1.8.0 | September 22, 2021 | September 22, 2023 | September 22, 2024 |
| 1.7.0 | August 8, 2021 | August 8, 2023 | August 8, 2024 |
| 1.6.1 | April 27, 2021 | April 27, 2023 | April 27, 2024 |
| 1.6.0 | February 21, 2021 | February 21, 2023 | February 21, 2024 |
- The two year support policy is standard. End of support is extended one year for Platinum support agreements.
Kafka Client Examples¶
To learn how to build Kafka clients apps using your favorite language, including Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, C/C++, and Go, see Kafka Client Examples.
Note
Confluent recommends upgrading to the latest client since current fixes are generally not found in older clients.