Kafka Streams 101: Optimizing your apps for maximum performance Learn the concepts, configs, and application design strategies to get your Kafka Streams apps running as optimally as possible.

Next up in the Kafka Streams 101 series: performance optimization!

Admittedly this one goes way beyond just the "101" level, with general tips to incredibly specific optimization techniques.

Check it out to get a handle on your application's performance: bit.ly/43zXoQM

Kafka Streams 101: Application Lifecycle Learn how to properly start, stop, and manage the lifecycle of Kafka Streams

Next entry in the Kafka Streams 101 series: application lifecycle.

Very beginner friendly, but even the pros might find a useful tip or two -- for example: have you heard of the new standby task listener?

Check it out: www.responsive.dev/blog/app-lif...

I like to think the capybara would be friends with an otter if it ever met one though

Kafka Streams 101: The Most Important Configs Learn which configurations are most critical for a reliable and efficient deployment

We're keeping the ball rolling on the Kafka Streams 101 series with yet another blog post! This time the focus is on configuration, and breaking down the most important configs to focus on for various needs (such as correctness, resiliency, etc)

Check it out here: www.responsive.dev/blog/importa...

Kafka Streams 101 | Responsive Learn to build bulletproof Kafka Streams applications

By the way, we're integrating this into our Kafka Streams 101 series, so if this speaks to you poke around the curriculum for other things that interest you and subscribe to get notified when new lessons comes out: www.responsive.dev/resources/ka...

Kafka Streams 101: Topology Upgrades A Kafka Streams 101 lesson to learn how to identify unsafe changes to a topology and the techniques to mitigate them

The 2025 blog post series has begun and we're kicking things off with the "official" Kafka Streams upgrade-guide -- check it out for best practices when setting up a new app, rules for safe vs unsafe upgrades, and tips for making the process go smoothly: www.responsive.dev/blog/topolog...

Kafka Streams 101 | Responsive Learn to build bulletproof Kafka Streams applications

Thanks everyone for all the feedback on blog post ideas! Performance and upgrades were most popular so stay tuned for these deep dives - for beginners and advanced users alike

Check out our new Kafka Streams 101 site and subscribe to get notified for these and other upcoming lessons! bit.ly/40LWJZL

Defense Against the Dark Arts of Rebalancing in Kafka Streams For everyone who is in too deep and wants to peel back the curtains on one of the most elegant yet maddening aspects of Apache Kafka: the consumer group rebalancing protocol.

[5/5] And finally, links!

"Debugging Rebalances" -- Defense Against the Dark Arts of Rebalancing -- responsive.dev/blog/guide-t...

"EOS guide" -- Enter the Matrix: A practical guide to exactly-once semantics in Kafka Streams -- responsive.dev/blog/guide-t...

..and many more at responsive.dev/blog

[4/5]
And if none of these resonate with you or there's something in particular you've always wanted to go deeper on that isn't listed here, feel free to respond in the thread or DM me.

Happy streaming!

Don't Panic: The Definitive Guide to Kafka Streams State A definitive guide to managing Kafka Streams state that covers some history, architecture concepts and many tips to prevent panic in the face of long restoration and rebalances.

[3/5]
1. Understanding & optimizing performance
2. Processing semantics
3. Task assignment
4. Topology upgrades
5. Testing Kafka Streams
6. Topology design and architectural best practices
7. State management v2 (followup to www.responsive.dev/blog/guide-t...)

[2/5] To that end I'd love to get feedback from you, the people actually using Kafka Streams, about which topics would be most helpful to touch on this year.

I have a few ideas already queued up so let me know which of these, if any, sound most interesting to you:

[1/5] Hey fellow Kafka Streams otters! You may have already seen my previous blog posts such as the "Debugging Rebalances" and "EOS guide" from last year (and if you haven't, go check them out! Links in thread)

But now it's 2025, and time for me to think about what to write next...

Q&A: Scaling Event Driven Architectures with Metronome | LinkedIn We're hosting a live Q&A session with two engineers who have seen it all: - Casey Crites, a founding engineer at Metronome, implemented and scaled the Kafka pipeline at Metronome from zero to where i...

For any Kafka Streams fans out there who want to know what it's like scaling an EOS application up to multiple TB of state at ~10k+ records/s with minimal downtime -- make sure to catch the Q&A we're hosting tomorrow with Metronome.

Join us Dec 12th at 9:30am PST!

www.linkedin.com/events/72647...