Apache Kafka is an event streaming platform widely adopted by Fortune 500 companies, offering features such as performance-related configurations and architectural concepts that make it the de-facto standard for event streaming. To ensure data durability, producers can configure acks settings, which trade off throughput against data loss guarantees. The acks=all configuration uses multiple replicas to store data, but may not always result in a majority of in-sync brokers due to network partitions or record load issues. Enforcing a minimum number of in-sync replicas using the min.insync.replicas configuration can mitigate this issue. Kafka clients have also improved with new features such as partitioner improvements and consumer group protocol changes, including cooperative rebalancing. The console producer and consumer tools allow for direct command-line production and consumption of records, while the kafka-dump-log command enables manual inspection of topic logs. Additionally, record headers offer metadata about Kafka records without adding extra information to key/value pairs. With its latest release, Apache Kafka 3.8.0 includes new features and improvements, offering a robust platform for event-driven applications.