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Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka — Zero to Advanced

A complete Kafka track for beginners, non-technical learners, engineers, and data teams: events, topics, producers, consumers, schemas, Connect, Streams, security, scaling, and system design.

Self-paced September 2026
◎Absolute beginners who need Kafka explained without jargon
↗Data engineers building real-time pipelines
⚙Backend engineers designing event-driven services
◈Non-technical leaders who need the big picture first
16
Live modules
8
Queued modules
5
Sections
120+
Concepts covered
9h
Total reading
0
Prerequisites
This track starts with everyday analogies, then builds toward production engineering. You will learn what Kafka is, how messages are stored and replayed, how producers and consumers behave, how teams integrate databases and cloud systems, and how advanced Kafka systems are secured, monitored, scaled, and designed.
Learning path
First Principles
Events, topics, partitions, producers, consumers, and brokers in plain English.
Core Mechanics
Consumer groups, offsets, replication, keys, retention, compaction, and delivery guarantees.
Build Systems
Schemas, producer design, consumer design, Kafka Connect, and Kafka Streams.
Run Production
Security, monitoring, performance, capacity, disaster recovery, and system design.
// Curriculum

16 Live Modules. 8 Advanced Modules Queued.

Follow in order. Each module begins with a simple explanation, then adds the production detail engineers need.

1
Section 1 — Kafka From Zero
MODULE 01LIVE

What is Apache Kafka?

Kafka explained without jargon: events, streams, producers, consumers, and why companies use it.

EventsStreamsProducersConsumersReal-time data
14-18 min
Beginner
Start →
MODULE 02LIVE

Events, Topics, and Partitions

The three words every Kafka learner must understand before touching code.

EventTopicPartitionOffsetOrdering
16-20 min
Beginner
Start →
MODULE 03LIVE

Producers, Consumers, and Brokers

Who writes data, who reads data, and who stores it safely.

ProducerConsumerBrokerClusterClient
15-19 min
Beginner
Start →
MODULE 04LIVE

Local Setup and Kafka CLI

Install Kafka locally, create a topic, produce messages, and consume them safely.

InstallCLIKRaftTopicsConsole tools
18-24 min
Beginner
Start →
2
Section 2 — Core Kafka Mechanics
MODULE 05LIVE

Consumer Groups and Offsets

How Kafka scales readers, remembers progress, and rebalances work.

Consumer groupOffset commitRebalanceLag__consumer_offsets
18-24 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 06LIVE

Replication, Leaders, and ISR

How Kafka keeps data available when brokers fail.

ReplicationLeaderFollowerISRacks
20-26 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 07LIVE

Keys, Ordering, and Partitioning Strategy

Design keys so related events stay ordered without creating hot partitions.

KeysOrderingPartitionerHot partitionSkew
18-24 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 08LIVE

Retention and Log Compaction

Why Kafka can replay history, expire old events, or keep the latest value per key.

RetentionCompactionTombstoneReplayStorage
18-24 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 09LIVE

Delivery Semantics: At-Most, At-Least, Exactly-Once

What delivery guarantees really mean, without marketing fog.

At-most-onceAt-least-onceExactly-onceDuplicatesIdempotency
20-28 min
Intermediate
Start →
3
Section 3 — Building Kafka Applications
MODULE 10LIVE

Serialization and Schema Design

JSON, Avro, Protobuf, schema evolution, and compatibility rules.

JSONAvroProtobufSchema RegistryCompatibility
20-26 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 11LIVE

Producer Design

Batching, compression, retries, acks, idempotence, and safe producer defaults.

acksRetriesBatchingCompressionIdempotent producer
20-26 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 12LIVE

Consumer Design

Polling, processing, commits, retries, dead-letter topics, and backpressure.

Poll loopManual commitDLQRetriesBackpressure
20-28 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 13LIVE

Kafka Connect

Move data between Kafka and databases, files, search engines, and cloud systems.

Kafka ConnectSource connectorSink connectorTasksCDC
20-26 min
Intermediate
Start →
MODULE 14LIVE

Stream Processing and Kafka Streams

Filter, join, aggregate, and enrich Kafka events in real time.

Kafka StreamsKTableState storeWindowJoin
22-30 min
Intermediate
Start →
4
Section 4 — Operations, Security, and Scale
MODULE 15LIVE

Kafka Security: TLS, SASL, and ACLs

Encrypt traffic, authenticate clients, and authorize topic access.

TLSSASLACLmTLSAuthorization
22-30 min
Advanced
Start →
MODULE 16LIVE

Monitoring and Observability

Metrics, logs, lag, broker health, and what to alert on.

LagJMXMetricsAlertingObservability
20-28 min
Advanced
Start →
MODULE 17QUEUED

Performance Tuning

Tune producers, consumers, partitions, compression, batching, and broker resources.

ThroughputLatencyBatchingCompressionPartitions
22-30 min
Advanced
Coming soon
MODULE 18QUEUED

Scaling and Capacity Planning

Plan partitions, brokers, replication, disk, network, and growth.

CapacityScalingReplication factorDisk sizingNetwork
22-30 min
Advanced
Coming soon
MODULE 19QUEUED

Disaster Recovery and Multi-Region Kafka

Backups, replication, failover, MirrorMaker 2, active-passive, and active-active tradeoffs.

DRMirrorMaker 2RPORTOMulti-region
24-32 min
Advanced
Coming soon
5
Section 5 — Architecture and Real-World Practice
MODULE 20QUEUED

Event-Driven Architecture

Use Kafka to decouple services, publish facts, and design business events.

EDADomain eventsDecouplingChoreographyEvent contracts
22-30 min
Advanced
Coming soon
MODULE 21QUEUED

Change Data Capture with Debezium

Stream database changes into Kafka without fragile polling jobs.

CDCDebeziumOutboxDatabase logSnapshot
22-30 min
Advanced
Coming soon
MODULE 22QUEUED

Managed Kafka and Cloud Choices

Compare self-managed Kafka, Confluent Cloud, MSK, Azure Event Hubs Kafka API, and other managed options.

Managed KafkaConfluentMSKCloudCost
18-24 min
Intermediate
Coming soon
MODULE 23QUEUED

Testing and Debugging Kafka Systems

Local tests, embedded clusters, Testcontainers, contract tests, replay, and incident debugging.

TestingDebuggingTestcontainersReplayContracts
20-28 min
Advanced
Coming soon
MODULE 24QUEUED

Kafka Interview and System Design Guide

Prepare for Kafka interviews and design reviews with practical tradeoff language.

InterviewSystem designTradeoffsArchitectureScenarios
22-30 min
Advanced
Coming soon
Recommended foundation before advanced Kafka projects

Kafka becomes much easier when you also understand data pipelines, databases, and networking. This track teaches Kafka directly, then points naturally into the Data Engineering path.

Explore Data Engineering →
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