Release Notes for Confluent Platform 7.6

7.6 is a major release of Confluent Platform that provides you with Apache Kafka® 3.6, the latest stable version of Kafka.

The technical details of this release are summarized below.

For more information about the 7.6 release, check out the release blog.

Confluent Control Center (Legacy)

The MDS trust store can now be used to encrypt the SSO-related communications to IdP using SSL. To learn more, see Configure SSO for Confluent Control Center (Legacy) using OIDC on Confluent Platform.

Kafka brokers

Confluent Server

Confluent Community / Kafka

Confluent Platform 7.6 features Kafka 3.6. For a full list of the KIPs, features, and bug fixes, see the Apache Kafka release notes. For a summary of the improvements and changes in version 3.6, see Kafka 3.6 New Features and Updates on the Confluent blog, or the Kafka 3.6 release video that follows.

  • In Confluent Platform 7.6, major features are now supported in KRaft mode with some gaps to close in the next release. The Delegate Tokens feature is now supported.

    The following features are not supported:

    • Quorum reconfiguration
    • TopicAclAuthorizer for Schema Registry
    • JBOD

  • ZooKeeper to KRaft migrations for existing clusters are generally available in Confluent Platform versions 7.6.1 and later.

    Note the following:

    • You cannot migrate clusters with features that are currently not supported in KRaft mode.
    • You cannot migrate clusters with authorization that uses centralized ACLs.
    • Self-Balancing can’t be used while in ZooKeeper migration.

    For more information about migrating from ZooKeeper to KRaft, see Migrate from ZooKeeper to KRaft on Confluent Platform. For more information on current limitations of KRaft mode, see Limitations and known issues.

  • ZooKeeper was upgraded to version 3.8.3.

Cluster Management

Confluent for Kubernetes (formerly Confluent Operator)

For Confluent for Kubernetes release notes, see Confluent for Kubernetes Release Notes.

Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform

For Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform release notes, see the Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform.

Kafka Connect

Confluent Platform now supports managing offsets for both sink and source connectors using the Connect REST API. For more details, see KIP-875.

Other improvements and changes

Starting October 1st, 2025, a new Enterprise license key for Customer-managed Confluent Platform for Confluent Cloud subscription is being introduced. This new license key entitles you to use self-managed Confluent Platform components exclusively with Confluent Cloud services.

Prerequisites for installing the license key

  1. Ensure all your self-managed components are connected with Confluent Cloud and used for Confluent Cloud broker-related use cases. Confluent does not provide support for any self-managed Confluent Platform components that are used exclusively for Confluent Platform broker use cases under the Customer-managed Confluent Platform for Confluent Cloud subscription.
  2. You must upgrade Confluent Platform to the recommended minimum patch version for each minor version of Confluent Platform.

Warning

Applying this new Enterprise license key to Confluent Platform components or Control Center before upgrading them causes the license key update to fail. The failure is recorded as an error in the component logs, and it is shown on the Control Center if the license key was applied using Control Center.

If you are an existing customer, your existing license key will continue to function until its expiration date.

Note the following for Customer-managed Confluent Platform for Confluent Cloud:

  • This license key is solely for the use of self-managed Confluent Platform components with Confluent Cloud. Confluent does not provide support for any self-managed Confluent Platform components that are used exclusively for Confluent Platform broker use cases under the Customer-managed Confluent Platform for Confluent Cloud subscription.
  • If you are using Control Center, apply the license key in Control Center (recommended). For more information, see Manage Confluent Platform Licenses using Control Center. Alternatively, you can configure the confluent.license parameter in the Connect worker configuration, or at the individual connector level for enterprise support. Enterprise support is not provided for Schema Registry and REST Proxy unless the confluent-security package is installed on all nodes and a valid Enterprise license key is configured. For more information, see Configure component licenses for more details.

Note

Confluent Platform Connect workers now perform a pre-check during startup to validate critical Confluent licensing libraries. This prevents potential runtime errors by ensuring all required libraries are present and compatible. If this check fails due to missing or incompatible libraries, the worker will not start. To avoid related library conflicts, use the plugin.path configuration property to load connectors and their dependencies. Avoid using the CLASSPATH environment variable for plugins, as this can lead to unpredictable failures in the Connect framework as described in the Install a plugin.

Supported versions and interoperability

As of Confluent Platform 7.6:

  • Confluent Platform support for running on ARM64 Linux architectures is now GA.

For the full list of supported versions and interoperability of Confluent Platform and its components, see Supported Versions and Interoperability for Confluent Platform.

Confluent CLI

  • Confluent Platform 7.6 ships with Confluent CLI version 3.48.0. To install and use a later version of the CLI, you must download and install an alternative CLI version using these instructions.
  • The Confluent Hub CLI installation feature is deprecated in Confluent Platform 7.6 and will be removed in later versions. Use the confluent connect plugin install command to install self-managed connectors.

How to download

Confluent Platform is available for download at https://confluent.io/download/. See the Install Confluent Platform On-Premises section for detailed information.

Important

The Confluent Platform package includes Confluent Server by default and requires a confluent.license key in your server.properties file. Starting with Confluent Platform 5.4.x, the Confluent Server broker checks for a license during start-up. You must supply a license string in each broker’s properties file using the confluent.license property as below:

confluent.license=LICENCE_STRING_HERE_NO_QUOTES

If you want to use the Kafka broker, download the confluent-community package. The Kafka broker is the default in all Debian or RHEL and CentOS packages.

For more information about migrating to Confluent Server, see Migrate Confluent Platform to Confluent Server.

To upgrade Confluent Platform to a newer version, check the Upgrade Confluent Platform documentation.

Questions?

If you have questions regarding this release, feel free to reach out via the community mailing list or community Slack. Confluent customers are encouraged to contact our support directly.