Kafka Compatibility

Korvet implements a subset of the Kafka protocol for compatibility with existing clients and tools.

Supported APIs

API Status Notes

Produce

✅ Supported

Send messages to topics

Fetch

✅ Supported

Read messages from topics

Metadata

✅ Supported

Topic and partition information

ApiVersions

✅ Supported

Protocol version negotiation

Consumer Groups

✅ Supported

JoinGroup, SyncGroup, Heartbeat, LeaveGroup, OffsetCommit, OffsetFetch

Transactions

❌ Not planned

Use Redis transactions instead

Admin API

✅ Supported

CreateTopics, DeleteTopics, DescribeConfigs, DescribeCluster, ListGroups, DescribeGroups

Kafka Version Compatibility

Korvet uses the Apache Kafka client library version 3.9.1 and is compatible with Kafka clients from version 2.8.0 and later.

Client Compatibility

  • Minimum supported client version: 2.8.0

  • Recommended client version: 3.9.x

  • Kafka client library: 3.9.1

Kafka clients are backward compatible, so newer clients (3.x, 4.x) can connect to Korvet without issues.

Protocol Features

Korvet implements Kafka protocol features equivalent to Kafka 2.8.0+, including:

  • Produce API (v0-v9)

  • Fetch API (v0-v13)

  • Consumer Group Protocol (JoinGroup, SyncGroup, Heartbeat, LeaveGroup)

  • Offset Management (OffsetCommit, OffsetFetch)

  • Topic Administration (CreateTopics, DeleteTopics)

  • Metadata API

Limitations

  • Replication factor: Always 1 (Redis provides persistence)

  • Transactions: Not supported

  • Exactly-once semantics: Not supported (at-least-once delivery)

Client Configuration

Most Kafka client configurations work with Korvet. Some settings are ignored:

  • acks: Always treated as acks=1

  • replication.factor: Ignored (always 1)

  • min.insync.replicas: Ignored

Testing Compatibility

You can test Korvet with your existing Kafka applications by simply changing the bootstrap.servers configuration to point to Korvet.

Next Steps