Build Client Applications for Confluent Platform¶
Clients make it fast and easy to produce and consume messages through Apache Kafka®. Official Confluent clients are available for Java, along with librdkafka and derived clients. Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud include client libraries for multiple languages that provide both low-level access to Kafka and higher level stream processing.
Client Guides¶
Kafka Java Client
Docs | Tutorial | API | GitHub
Java producer and consumer shipped with Apache Kafka.
Confluent Official Clients¶
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 https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.kafka/kafka-clients.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.3.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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0.2 | 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.
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 | Yes | Yes |
| Simplified installation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Schema Registry | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Topic Metadata API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |