Build Client Applications for Confluent Platform

You can use Apache Kafka® clients to write distributed applications and microservices that read, write, and process streams of events in parallel, at scale, and in a fault-tolerant manner, even in the case of network problems or machine failures.

The Kafka client library provides functions, classes, and utilities that you can use to create Kafka producer clients and consumer clients using various programming languages. The primary way to build production-ready producers and consumers is by using a programming language and a Kafka client library.

The official Confluent supported clients are:

  • Java: The official Java client library supports the producer, consumer, Streams, and Connect APIs.
  • librdkafka and derived clients:
    • 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.

When you use the official Confluent-supported clients, you get the same enterprise-level support that you get with the rest of Confluent Platform:

  • The release cycle for Confluent-provided clients follow the Confluent release cycle, as opposed to the Apache Kafka release cycle.
  • Confluent Platform maintenance fixes are provided for the 2-3 years (2 years with the Standard Support and 3 years with the Platinum Support) after the initial release of a minor version.

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.

Client guides

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Kafka Java Client

Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub

Java producer and consumer shipped with Apache Kafka.

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Kafka C/C++ Client

Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub

librdkafka, a C/C++ library that offers a producer and a consumer for Kafka.

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Kafka Python Client

Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub

Python client that provides a high-level producer, consumer, and AdminClient.

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Kafka Go Client

Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub

Go client that offers a producer and a consumer for Kafka.

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Kafka .NET Client

Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub

.NET client that provides a high-level producer, consumer and AdminClient.

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Confluent JMS Client

Docs

Allows Kafka or Confluent Platform to be used as a JMS message broker.

Client versions and support

Java client support

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.

  • The Kafka client version matches and maps to the version of Kafka that supports it. To learn more, see the Apache Kafka Clients Maven Repository.

  • Confluent supports Kafka clients included with new releases of Kafka in the interval before a corresponding Confluent Platform release, and when connecting to Confluent Cloud.

    For example, on May 1, 2024, Confluent would support Java clients 3.7.x even though the corresponding Confluent Platform release, 7.7.x would not be released on May 1, 2024.

Java clients version Release Date Standard End of Support Platinum End of Support
3.8.x July 26, 2024 July 26, 2026 July 26, 2027
3.7.x February 27, 2024 February 27, 2026 February 27, 2027
3.6.x October 11, 2023 October 11, 2025 October 11, 2026
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 ended 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 client support

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
2.5.x July 10, 2024 July 10, 2026 July 10, 2027
2.4.x May 7, 2024 May 7, 2026 May 7, 2027
2.3.x October 26, 2023 October 26, 2025 October 26, 2026
2.2.x July 13, 2023 July 13, 2025 July 13, 2026
2.1.x April 6, 2023 April 6, 2025 April 6, 2026
2.0.x January 24, 2023 January 24, 2025 January 24, 2026
1.9.x June 16, 2022 June 16, 2024 June 16, 2025
1.8.x September 22, 2021 September 22, 2023 September 22, 2024
1.7.x August 8, 2021 August 8, 2023 August 8, 2024
1.6.x February 21, 2021 February 21, 2023 February 21, 2024
  • An end-of-support date is based on the first release of the specified minor version. The support date windows apply to that minor version and any maintenance/patch versions that come under the minor version. For example, 1.9.0 and 1.9.1 would have the same support windows as specified for 1.9.x.
  • The two-year support policy is standard. End of support is extended one year for Platinum support agreements.

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 for Confluent Platform.

Note

Confluent recommends upgrading to the latest client since current fixes are generally not found in older clients.

Supported Confluent Platform Features for Kafka Clients

The following tables describes the client support for various Confluent Platform features.

Feature C/C++ Go Java .NET Python
Admin API Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Control Center metrics integration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Custom partitioner Yes No Yes No No
Exactly Once Semantics Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Idempotent Producer Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Kafka Streams No No Yes No No
Record Headers Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SASL Kerberos/GSSAPI Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SASL PLAIN Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SASL SCRAM Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SASL OAUTHBEARER Yes Yes Yes No No
Simplified installation Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Schema Registry Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Topic Metadata API Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes