The Kafka Streams API allows developers to build real-time data processing applications with Apache Kafka without requiring a separate processing cluster. This enables fast development and deployment of applications, regardless of the programming language used. The Confluent demo applications and Docker-based demo setup are available for users to get started quickly. Container technologies like Docker can be used to speed up iterative development on laptops, and the Kafka Streams API can be containerized and deployed alongside other services using Confluent Docker images. This allows developers to use the same organizational processes and technical tooling for development, testing, packaging, deployment, and monitoring of Kafka Streams applications as they do elsewhere in their company.