The Apache Kafka system has undergone significant changes with the introduction of the KIP-500 code, which replaces ZooKeeper with an internal quorum service called KRaft mode. This new feature simplifies the deployment and operation of Kafka clusters, allowing for a single-process deployment and improved scalability. The KRaft mode uses an event-driven architecture to ensure accurate replication of metadata across the cluster. With this change, Kafka can now support significantly more partitions per cluster than previously possible. The quorum controller is designed to handle a much larger number of partitions, reducing controlled shutdown times from 135 seconds to 32 seconds and recovery times from 503 seconds to 37 seconds. This improvement enables Kafka to be used for both small-scale workloads and high-throughput use cases without the complexity of managing two separate systems. The new quorum controller is available in trunk today in experimental mode and is expected to be included in the upcoming Apache Kafka 2.8 release, providing a lightweight way to get started with Kafka or use it as an alternative to monolithic brokers like ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ.