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It's Okay To Store Data In Kafka

Blog post from Confluent

Post Details
Company
Date Published
Author
Lucia Cerchie, Jay Kreps, Josep Prat
Word Count
1,811
Language
English
Hacker News Points
84
Summary

Kafka can be used as a primary store for data, but it's not necessarily crazy to do so, especially since it was designed with storage in mind. However, treating Kafka as a primary store does require running the system correctly and knowing its limitations. Unlike traditional messaging systems, Kafka is more akin to a distributed file system or database, with features like replicated logs, high-throughput reads, and concurrent writes. While Kafka can be used for stream processing, it's not intended to replace databases entirely, but rather serves as a commit log or storage layer for derived indexes or views. Its true mission is to make streams of data and stream processing a mainstream development paradigm, acting as a central nervous system for modern digital businesses.