Introducing Apache Kafka® 4.1.0: What’s New and How to Upgrade

Apache Kafka 4.1.0 introduces several new features and improvements, including the preview of Queues for Kafka (KIP-932) and the early access release of the Streams Rebalance Protocol (KIP-1071). This version enhances error handling for transactions (KIP-1050), adds a new Consumer.close(CloseOptions) method (KIP-1092), and introduces deadlock protection for the producer network thread (KIP-1118). Kafka now supports the OAuth jwt-bearer grant type (KIP-1139) and offers improved metric registration for plugins (KIP-877). Kafka Streams sees updates such as explicit naming for internal topics (KIP-1111) and improved task assignment protocols, while Kafka Connect supports running multiple versions of connector plugins (KIP-891). These updates aim to streamline operations, enhance stability, and improve scalability for users.