Skip to main content
Redhat Developers  Logo
  • Products

    Platforms

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      Red Hat Enterprise Linux Icon
    • Red Hat AI
      Red Hat AI
    • Red Hat OpenShift
      Openshift icon
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      Ansible icon
    • View All Red Hat Products

    Featured

    • Red Hat build of OpenJDK
    • Red Hat Developer Hub
    • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
    • Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
    • Red Hat OpenShift Local
    • Red Hat Developer Sandbox

      Try Red Hat products and technologies without setup or configuration fees for 30 days with this shared Openshift and Kubernetes cluster.
    • Try at no cost
  • Technologies

    Featured

    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • Linux
      Linux Icon
    • Kubernetes
      Cloud icon
    • Automation
      Automation Icon showing arrows moving in a circle around a gear
    • View All Technologies
    • Programming Languages & Frameworks

      • Java
      • Python
      • JavaScript
    • System Design & Architecture

      • Red Hat architecture and design patterns
      • Microservices
      • Event-Driven Architecture
      • Databases
    • Developer Productivity

      • Developer productivity
      • Developer Tools
      • GitOps
    • Automated Data Processing

      • AI/ML
      • Data Science
      • Apache Kafka on Kubernetes
    • Platform Engineering

      • DevOps
      • DevSecOps
      • Ansible automation for applications and services
    • Secure Development & Architectures

      • Security
      • Secure coding
  • Learn

    Featured

    • Kubernetes & Cloud Native
      Openshift icon
    • Linux
      Rhel icon
    • Automation
      Ansible cloud icon
    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • View All Learning Resources

    E-Books

    • GitOps Cookbook
    • Podman in Action
    • Kubernetes Operators
    • The Path to GitOps
    • View All E-books

    Cheat Sheets

    • Linux Commands
    • Bash Commands
    • Git
    • systemd Commands
    • View All Cheat Sheets

    Documentation

    • Product Documentation
    • API Catalog
    • Legacy Documentation
  • Developer Sandbox

    Developer Sandbox

    • Access Red Hat’s products and technologies without setup or configuration, and start developing quicker than ever before with our new, no-cost sandbox environments.
    • Explore Developer Sandbox

    Featured Developer Sandbox activities

    • Get started with your Developer Sandbox
    • OpenShift virtualization and application modernization using the Developer Sandbox
    • Explore all Developer Sandbox activities

    Ready to start developing apps?

    • Try at no cost
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Videos

Kafka Monthly Digest: July 2025

August 1, 2025
Mickael Maison
Related topics:
Kafka
Related products:
Streams for Apache Kafka

Share:

    This 90th edition of the Kafka Monthly Digest covers what happened in the Apache Kafka community in July 2025.
     
    For last month’s digest, see Kafka Monthly Digest: June 2025.

    Releases

    There are two releases in progress:

    4.1.0

    The release process for 4.1.0 continued. I published RC0 on July 11, but a number of issues (KAFKA-19504, KAFKA-19427, KAFKA-19520, KAFKA-19522) were found. I then published RC1 on July 21 and the vote is currently on-going. You can find the release plan in the wiki.

    4.0.1

    Christo Lolov published the first release candidate of this bugfix version on July 25. It contains over 40 fixes since 4.0.0. The vote is currently on-going. The release plan is available in the wiki.
     

    Kafka Improvement Proposals

    Last month, the community submitted 13 KIPs (KIP-1190 to KIP-1202). I'll highlight a few of them:
     
    • KIP-1189: Allow custom topic configurations for RemoteStorageManager: This KIP proposes allowing users to add custom configurations to topics. The goal is to provide context to tiered storage plugins to enable handling specific topics differently. For example this could be selecting a different S3 storage classes, improving data lineage or applying specific performance/security tuning.
       
    • KIP-1191: Dead-letter queues for share groups: Kafka 4.0.0 introduced shared groups, as known as queues. If a record is unable to be processed by a shared group, it's currently marked as archived and ignored. This KIP proposes sending a record to a dead letter queue topic and attaching headers with details about the unprocessable records so the failure is tracked and the failing record can easily be retrieved and reviewed if needed. 
       
    • KIP-1198: Implement a ConfigKey.Builder class: Kafka exposes the ConfigDef API for plugins and connectors to define their own configurations. There are a lot of options for configurations, such as their name, type, default value, allowed values, requirements, documentation, etc. All of these are handled via method overrides and this makes this API pretty cumbersome to use. The goal of this KIP is to provide a fluent API so it's more flexible and easier to use and maintain.
       

    Community Releases

    • strimzi-kafka-operator 0.47: Strimzi is a Kubernetes Operator for running Kafka. This new release now exposes progress of cluster rebalances via Cruise Control and adds support for Kubernetes Image Volumes to inject custom plugins into your broker and Connect images.
       
    • Debezium 3.2: Debezium is a Change Data Capture platform. The connectors are now built and tested with Kafka 4.0. As usual this new release is packed with features and improvements for all connectors.
       
    • Librdkafka 2.11: Librdkafka is a Kafka client in C/C++. This release adds support for rebootstrapping (KIP-1102) and OAuth jwt-bearer grant type (KIP-1139).

    Blogs

    I selected some interesting blog articles that were published last month:
    • Kafka Tiered Storage: Keep Your Data Flowing as Smoothly as Dutch Canals
    • Kafka's High Watermark Offset
    • Writing to Apache Iceberg on S3 using Kafka Connect with Glue catalog

    To learn more about Kafka, visit Red Hat Developer's Apache Kafka topic page.
        
    Disclaimer: Please note the content in this blog post has not been thoroughly reviewed by the Red Hat Developer editorial team. Any opinions expressed in this post are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of Red Hat.

    Recent Posts

    • Kafka Monthly Digest: September 2025

    • A more secure way to handle secrets in OpenShift

    • How to deploy MCP servers on OpenShift using ToolHive

    • How to change the meaning of python and python3 on RHEL

    • vLLM or llama.cpp: Choosing the right LLM inference engine for your use case

    Red Hat Developers logo LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Facebook

    Platforms

    • Red Hat AI
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
    • Red Hat OpenShift
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
    • See all products

    Build

    • Developer Sandbox
    • Developer Tools
    • Interactive Tutorials
    • API Catalog

    Quicklinks

    • Learning Resources
    • E-books
    • Cheat Sheets
    • Blog
    • Events
    • Newsletter

    Communicate

    • About us
    • Contact sales
    • Find a partner
    • Report a website issue
    • Site Status Dashboard
    • Report a security problem

    RED HAT DEVELOPER

    Build here. Go anywhere.

    We serve the builders. The problem solvers who create careers with code.

    Join us if you’re a developer, software engineer, web designer, front-end designer, UX designer, computer scientist, architect, tester, product manager, project manager or team lead.

    Sign me up

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • About Red Hat
    • Jobs
    • Events
    • Locations
    • Contact Red Hat
    • Red Hat Blog
    • Inclusion at Red Hat
    • Cool Stuff Store
    • Red Hat Summit
    © 2025 Red Hat

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • Privacy statement
    • Terms of use
    • All policies and guidelines
    • Digital accessibility

    Report a website issue