Every config. Every byte.
One reference.
Figure 1 · How a record travels through Kafka
Kafka is a commit log dressed up as a distributed system. Producers append, partitions order, consumers read at their own pace. From those three rules, plus hundreds of config knobs, a thousand KIPs and an evolving wire protocol, modern data infrastructure is built.
This explorer indexes the lot. Every config across 33 versions. Every field of all 93 protocol APIs. Every error code, every KIP, every upgrade edge case, cross-referenced and kept current with trunk.
Configuration Explorer
Browse and compare every Kafka config property across 33 versions — broker, producer, consumer, Streams, and Connect.
log.retention.hours · num.io.threads · linger.ms
→Protocol Explorer
Field-level changes across all 93 Kafka protocol APIs, mapped to releases with KIP references.
Produce v0–v11 · Fetch v0–v17 · JoinGroup v0–v9
→Wire Format Visualizer
How Kafka protocol messages are encoded on the wire — byte-level binary layout with schema and example payloads.
00 00 00 23 · api_key · api_version · client_id
→API Versions Matrix
Which protocol API versions does each Kafka release support? Matrix view across all versions.
0.10 · 1.0 · 2.0 · 2.8 · 3.0 · 3.6 · 4.0 · 4.2
→KIP Explorer
All Kafka Improvement Proposals with AI summaries, domain tags, and protocol impact analysis.
KIP-405 Tiered Storage · KIP-500 Remove ZooKeeper
→Kafka Upgrade Guide
Version-by-version changelog — config diffs, protocol updates, API bumps, and related KIPs for every release.
3.6 → 3.7 · 3.7 → 3.8 · 3.8 → 4.0
→Config Advisor
Expert-curated tuning profiles for throughput, latency, durability, and cost — with tradeoff explanations.
High throughput · Low latency · Durable · Cost
→Error Decoder
All 134 Kafka error codes explained with common causes, solutions, and diagnostic commands.
NOT_LEADER_OR_FOLLOWER · UNKNOWN_TOPIC_OR_PARTITION
→Flink SQL Playground
Paste a Flink SQL query and see what it does — topic flow, window behavior, state analysis, warnings.
TUMBLE · HOP · SESSION · MATCH_RECOGNIZE
→Debezium
Connector config matrix, event envelope, snapshot modes and error reference across 5 connectors.
PostgreSQL · MySQL · MongoDB · SQL Server · Oracle
→SMT Explorer
Build and test Kafka Connect SMT chains interactively — paste a record, add transforms, see the output live.
ReplaceField · MaskField · Cast · TimestampConverter
→