Supported Versions and Interoperability for Confluent Platform

This topic provides the supported version and interoperability information for Confluent Platform and its components for Confluent Platform 7.6 and older. Note that older versions are removed as their support windows end. If a newer Confluent Platform version exists, you can select it in the version picker in the lower left to view its interoperability and version support.

Confluent Platform and Apache Kafka compatibility

Confluent Platform	Apache Kafka®	Release Date	Standard End of Support	Platinum End of Support
7.6.x	3.6.x	February 9, 2024	February 9, 2026	February 9, 2027
7.5.x	3.5.x	August 25, 2023	August 25, 2025	August 25, 2026
7.4.x	3.4.x	May 3, 2023	May 3, 2025	May 3, 2026
7.3.x	3.3.x	November 4, 2022	November 4, 2024	November 4, 2025
7.2.x	3.2.x	July 6, 2022	July 6, 2024	July 6, 2025
7.1.x	3.1.x	April 5, 2022	April 5, 2024	April 5, 2025
7.0.x	3.0.x	October 27, 2021	October 27, 2023	October 27, 2024
6.2.x	2.8.x	June 8, 2021	June 8, 2023	June 8, 2024
6.1.x	2.7.x	February 9, 2021	February 9, 2023	February 9, 2024

Note the following about Confluent Platform versions and support levels:

• Standard support means any support level below Platinum support. For example, if you have Gold support, you have Standard support.

• The end of support date applies to minor versions and any maintenance versions that come after the minor version. This means that maintenance versions follow the same two year lifecycle of the minor version. For example, the standard support for Confluent Platform 6.1.x ends on February 9, 2023.

• The two year support policy is standard. End of support is extended one year for Platinum support agreements.

• Platinum support does not extend the support timeline for Confluent for Kubernetes (CFK) / Operator.

  You can apply your Platinum support contract to the Confluent Platform components deployed by CFK / Operator when both of the following conditions are true:

  • You are on a currently supported version of CFK / Operator. See Supported versions of CFK.
  • The Confluent Platform version you want to use is compatible with a currently supported version of CFK / Operator.

• 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.

Operating systems

Confluent Platform and clients support these operating systems.

It is recommended that you run Confluent Platform across uniform OS, Confluent Platform, and JAVA versions.

Currently, Confluent Platform supports X86 hardware architecture. ARM64 is supported in Confluent Platform 7.6.0 and later.

Operating System	7.6.x	7.5.x	7.4.x	7.3.x	7.2.x	7.1.x	7.0.x	6.2.x	6.1.x
RHEL 9.x	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
RHEL/CentOS 8.x	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
RHEL/CentOS 7.x (deprecated *)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Debian 10 (buster)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
Debian 9 (stretch) (deprecated *)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Rocky Linux 9	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no	no	no
Rocky Linux 8	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no	no	no
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (focal)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (bionic)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (xenial) (deprecated *)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes

^* Deprecated: Support for these OS versions is deprecated because they have reached their end of life. The OS is currently supported for Confluent Platform 7.6, but this support may be removed in a future release.

SELinux

Confluent Platform is supported on RHEL, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, and Rocky Linux Operating Systems. Confluent is not accountable for Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) policy development, support, or enforcement. If you experience issues running Confluent Platform with SELinux enabled on a supported Linux Operating System, contact your OS provider for assistance.

Windows

Windows is not currently supported for Confluent Platform.

Windows 8.1 and later, as well as Windows 2016 and later, are supported by the C/C++ and .NET clients.

macOS

macOS 10.14 and later is supported for testing and development purposes only.

File descriptors

For the file descriptor requirement for Kafka, see File Descriptors and mmap.

ulimit

Control Center requires many open RocksDB files. Set the ulimit for the number of open files to a minimum value of 16384 using the ulimit -n command.

For the other Confluent Platform components, specifically Schema Registry and Replicator, you can leave the ulimit as the OS default.

RHEL with TLS

When installing Confluent Platform on RHEL8 with TLS encryption, you must add DH Key Size JVM Parameters for each component. For more information, see Strong crypto defaults in RHEL 8 and deprecation of weak crypto algorithms.

Set the following component-level environment variables to the argument:

• Control Center: CONTROL_CENTER_OPTS=-Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048
• Schema Registry: SCHEMA_REGISTRY_OPTS=-Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048
• Kafka, ZooKeeper, and Connect: KAFKA_OPTS=-Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048
• REST Proxy: KAFKAREST_OPTS=-Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048
• ksqlDB: KSQL_OPTS=-Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048

atime

The atime mount option impacts performance, because every read operation on a file system causes a write operation.

Confluent recommends disabling the tracking of atime by setting the noatime option when you mount Kafka data disks.

Java

You need to separately install the correct version of Java before you start the Confluent Platform installation process.

The following table lists Java support in Confluent Platform by version. Note the following:

• You should use the full JDK to help Confluent Support with troubleshooting and to provide better support if you experience issues with Confluent Platform.
• OpenJDK, Zulu OpenJDK, Eclipse Temurin (formerly known as AdoptOpenJDK), and Oracle are supported with Confluent Platform.
• Docker images require version 11. For more information, see Docker.

Confluent Platform	Recommended	Supported
7.6.x	17	17, 11, 8 *
7.5.x	17	17, 11, 8 *
7.4.x	17	17, 11, 8 *
7.3.x	17	17, 11, 8
7.2.x	11	11, 8
7.1	11 or 8	11, 8
7.0	11 or 8	11, 8
6.2	11 or 8	11, 8
6.1	11 or 8	11, 8
6.0	11 or 8	11, 8

^* Java 8 is now deprecated in Confluent Platform, and will be removed in a future version.

From a security perspective, you should use the latest released patch version because older versions may have security vulnerabilities.

Java 9 and 10 are not supported in Confluent Platform as those versions are short-term rapid release versions.

For more information about Java versions, see Java Version History.

Scala

Confluent Platform	Scala for Packages and Docker	Scala for Maven JARs
7.6.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.5.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.4.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.3.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.2.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.1.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
7.0.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
6.2.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13
6.1.x	2.13	2.12, 2.13

Confluent Control Center

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

Confluent Control Center	Confluent Platform
7.6.x	6.1.0 through 7.6.x
7.5.x	6.0.0 through 7.5.x
7.4.x	6.0.0 through 7.4.x
7.3.x	5.4.x through 7.3.x
7.2.x	5.3.x through 7.2.x
7.1.x	5.2.x through 7.1.x
7.0.x	5.1.x through 7.0.x
6.2.x	5.0.x through 6.2.x
6.1.x	4.1.x through 6.1.x
6.0.x	4.0.x through 6.0.x

Confluent CLI

You can use the Confluent CLI with compatible Confluent Platform versions.

Confluent Platform	Confluent CLI
7.6.x	3.48.0 through most recent 3.x version
7.5.x	3.2.1 through most recent 3.x version
7.4.x	3.2.1 through most recent 3.x version
7.3.x	2.28.1 through most recent 2.x version
7.2.x	2.19.0 through most recent 2.x version
7.1.x	2.6.1 through most recent 2.x version
7.0.x	1.40.0 through most recent 1.x version
6.2.x	1.30.0 through most recent 1.x version
6.1.x	1.22.0 through most recent 1.x version
6.0.x	1.11.0 through most recent 1.x version

To install and use a later version of the CLI than the version that shipped with Confluent Platform, you must download and install the later version using these instructions.

ksqlDB

You can use Confluent Platform ksqlDB with compatible Confluent Platform and Kafka versions.

Starting with version 5.4.x, Confluent Platform ksqlDB is compatible with:

• Confluent Platform 3.3.0 and later;
• Kafka 0.11.0 and later.

When you install Confluent Platform, you get a specific version of ksqlDB. The following table shows which version of ksqlDB ships with each version of Confluent Platform.

Confluent Platform	ksqlDB	Kafka Streams version
7.6.x	7.6.0-137	3.6.0
7.5.x	0.29.0	3.5.0
7.4.x	0.28.3-RC7	3.4.0
7.3.x	0.28.2	3.3.2
7.2.x	0.26.0	3.2.0
7.1.x	0.23.1	3.1.0
7.0.x	0.21.0	3.0.0
6.2.x	0.17.0	2.8.0
6.1.x	0.14.0	2.7.0
6.0.x	0.10.2	2.6.0

ZooKeeper

ZooKeeper was upgraded in December 2023 to version 3.8.3 in Confluent Platform versions 6.1.x through 7.6. For information on upgrading, see Upgrade ZooKeeper.

Note

Starting with Confluent Platform 7.4, KRaft is generally available and the default option for metadata management for new Apache Kafka® clusters. For more information, see KRaft Overview for Confluent Platform.

Confluent Platform	Apache ZooKeeper™
7.6.x	3.5.6 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.5.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.4.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.3.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.2.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.1.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
7.0.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
6.2.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
6.1.x	3.4.10 through 3.8.3 (3.8.3 recommended)
6.0.x	3.4.10 through 3.5.9 (3.5.9 recommended)

For Confluent Platform 6.0.x, 6.1.x, 6.2.x, 7.0.x, 7.1.x, and 7.2.x, use ZooKeeper 3.5.6 or later to configure TLS connectivity to ZooKeeper.

Component security

Kafka

Security Feature	Confluent Platform
Audit log	2.0.x and later
Authentication with 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
TLS/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
Single Sign-On (SSO)	7.5.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
Access Control (RBAC) for Schema Linking Exporters	7.0.9, 7.1.7, 7.2.5, 7.3.2, 7.3.3, 7.4.0, and later.
Authentication and Encryption with secured Kafka brokers	3.0.x and later
HTTPS (SSL) for REST clients	3.0.x and later

Clients

To learn more about features and details of supported clients, see Build Client Applications for Confluent Platform.

Client	System Requirements
.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.
C/C++	Build toolchain must support C99 and C++98 or later.
Golang	Golang 1.7 or later. Build toolchain must support CGo and C99 or later. Not supported on Windows.
Python	Python 2.7 or later. Windows is supported.
Java	See the supported Java versions.
JMS Client	See the supported Java versions.

Connectors

Refer to individual connector documentation for Confluent Platform interoperability information. See Supported Connectors for a list of supported connectors.

Cross-component compatibility

The following sections describe version compatibility between Kafka brokers and individual components.

Kafka Connect workers

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

Following is version compatibility for Java clients. Note that versions may be compatible, but support is offered for a specific time window for each version. For a table of release and end of support dates for Java clients by version number, see Java client support.

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

Refer to Kafka Streams Compatibility Matrix for the version compatibility between Kafka Streams clients and Kafka brokers.

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. Note that although all versions are compatible, support is provided for a specific time window by version. For a table of release and end of support dates for librdkafka and derived clients by version number, see librdkafka and derived client support.

Schema Registry

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.

Replicator

For data transfer Replicator maintains the same compatibility matrix as Java clients, detailed in Kafka Java clients. However some Replicator features have different compatibility requirements:

• Schema Translation requires that both source and destination clusters are running Confluent 5.2.0 or later.
• Offset Translation requires that both source and destination clusters are running Confluent 5.1.0 or later.
• Automatic topic creation and config sync requires that the destination cluster is at a later version than the source cluster.
• The timestamp-interceptor for consumers supports only Java clients, as described in Configuring the consumer for failover (timestamp preservation).

REST Proxy

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.

Orchestration tools

Confluent for Kubernetes

For details about the supported Kubernetes environments, refer to Confluent for Kubernetes Supported Environments.

The following table summarizes the Confluent Platform features supported with Confluent for Kubernetes.

Confluent Platform 7.6 Feature	Availability in CFK 2.8
Kafka Broker	Available, only via Confluent Server
ZooKeeper	Available
Schema Registry	Available
REST Proxy	Available
ksqlDB	Available
Connect	Available
Control Center	Available
Replicator	Available
Security: Role-based Access Control	Available [1]
Security: Authentication	Available [2]
Security: Network Encryption	Available
Structured Audit Logs	Available [3]
MDS-based Access Control Lists (ACLs)	Available
ZooKeeper-based ACLs	Available
Secrets Protection	Available [4]
Schema Validation	Available
FIPS	Available
Multi-region Clusters	Available
Tiered Storage	Available
Self-Balancing Clusters	Available
Auto Data Balancer	Use Self-Balancing Clusters
ZooKeeper TLS/SSL	Available
Confluent REST API	Available
Cluster Registry	Not Available
Cluster Linking	Available
Health+	Available

• ^[1] Only available for new installations.
• ^[2] Supports SASL/Plain and mTLS for Kafka authentication. Does not support Kerberos or SASL/Scram.
• ^[3] Supported through Kafka and ZooKeeper configuration overrides. See Configure Audit Logs using the Properties File in Confluent Platform for the properties you need to set in config overrides. Does not support centrally managed Audit Logs.
• ^[4] Kubernetes Secrets are integrated. CFK does not enable you to use Confluent Secret Protection.

Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform

Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform (Confluent Ansible) provides you a simple way to configure and deploy Confluent Platform on a traditional VM or bare metal infrastructure. For more information, see Ansible documentation .

For version compatibility among Confluent Ansible, Confluent Platform, Ansible, and Python, see Ansible Requirements.

The following table summarizes the Confluent Platform features supported with Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform.

Confluent Platform 7.6 Feature	Availability in Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform 7.6
Kafka Broker	Available
ZooKeeper	Available
Schema Registry	Available
REST Proxy	Available
ksqlDB	Available
Connect	Available
Control Center	Available [1]
Replicator	Available [2]
Security: Authentication	Available [3]
Security: Role-based Access Control (RBAC)	Available
Security: Network Encryption	Available
Structured Audit Logs	Available
MDS-based Access Control Lists (ACLs)	Available [4]
ZooKeeper-based ACLs	Not available
Secrets Protection	Available [5]
Schema Validation	Available
FIPS	Available
Multi-region Clusters	Available
Tiered Storage	Available
Self-Balancing Clusters	Available
Auto Data Balancer	Not available
ZooKeeper TLS/SSL	Available
Confluent REST API	Available
Health+	Available
Cluster Registry	Available
Cluster Linking	Available

• ^[1] Cannot configure Control Center to monitor multiple Kafka clusters.
• ^[2] Cannot have RBAC enabled on the source or target cluster.
• ^[3] Cannot enable both SASL and mTLS for ZooKeeper out of the box. See Ansible Troubleshooting for enabling both authentication modes using config overrides.
• ^[4] Only available for new installations. Does not support centrally managing ACLs across multiple Kafka clusters.
• ^[5] Does not support ZooKeeper configuration Secrets.

You can manually configure the features marked as Not available outside of the scope of Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform. If you take the hybrid installation approach, refer to the appropriate installation document in Confluent documentation to ensure your install path of mixing Ansible installation and manual installation is supported.

Docker

If you are not using a higher-level container orchestration system like Kubernetes, Confluent Platform Docker images are available for use directly with Docker. Docker version 1.11 or later running on a supported operating system is required to use the Docker images.

Release	Docker Image Reference	Operating System	Zulu OpenJDK Version	Python Version	Scala Version
7.6.x	Docker Image Reference for Confluent Platform	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.21	3.9.18	2.13
7.5.x	Docker Image Reference (7.5)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.20	3.9.13	2.13
7.4.x	Docker Image Reference (7.4)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.18	3.9.13	2.13
7.3.x	Docker Image Reference (7.3)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.9.7	2.13
7.2.x	Docker Image Reference (7.2)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.6.8	2.13
7.1.x	Docker Image Reference (7.1)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.6.8	2.13
7.0.x	Docker Image Reference (7.0)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.6.8	2.13
6.2.x	Docker Image Reference (6.2)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.6.8	2.13
6.1.x	Docker Image Reference (6.1)	RHEL UBI 8	11.0.15-1	3.6.8	2.13

MirrorMaker

MirrorMaker 2 is supported as a stand-alone executable, but is not supported as a connector.

The following Confluent products provide more complete solutions that handle topic configuration, data, and schemas to improve availability, scalability, and ease of use.

• Confluent Replicator
• Cluster Linking
• Schema Linking

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

VMWare

When you run Confluent Platform on VMWare, note the following:

• You should enable compression to help mitigate the performance impacts while maintaining business continuity.
• You should disable vMotion and disk snapshotting for Confluent Platform as the features could cause a full cluster outage when used with Kafka.

Confluent supports customers who choose to run Confluent Platform on VMWare VMotion. However, the scope of support will be limited to questions and fixes which are related to Confluent Platform itself and not troubleshooting or debugging VMotion (which is outside the scope of Confluent Support). For more information, see Running Confluent Platform on VMWare VMotion (requires sign in) on the Confluent Support portal and VMware optimization.