Kafka Best Practices (High Level)

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Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed streaming platform that is widely used by developers and organizations for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications. However, like any technology, there are certain best practices you should follow to get the most out of Kafka.

Plan your data schema

Before you start using Kafka, take the time to plan your data schema. Decide how you want to partition your data and how you want to structure your messages. Avoid changing the schema frequently, as this can cause compatibility issues and downtime.

Use Kafka topics efficiently

Kafka topics are the primary means of organizing data in Kafka. When designing Kafka topics, follow these best practices:

• Use descriptive topic names that reflect the data being stored
• Create a sufficient number of partitions for each topic
• Use the same number of partitions across all topics
• Ensure that partition keys are evenly distributed
• Set appropriate retention policies based on your use case

Optimize your Kafka consumers

Kafka consumers are the applications that consume data from Kafka topics. When designing Kafka consumers, follow these best practices: