Kafka as a database

The Java2Days conference is one of the major Java conferences in Eastern Europe, with a rich history dating back to 2009. Its 2022 edition featured our colleague Taner sharing his experience with Apache Kafka in a “Kafka as a database” session.

The debate on whether Kafka can be considered a database has resulted in a wide range of opinions on opposite ends of the spectrum. You’re either in “Team Red” or “Team Blue”. 

In his talk Taner presents Apache Kafka in a different light. Apache Kafka is a tool used to stream real-time data, labeled as an event streaming platform by definition. Can it be considered a database though, or can it be used as such? 

Watch this session to join in on the “Team Red” vs. “Team Blue” debate. Knowing that a media giant such as New York Times is using Kafka logs as the “source of truth” for the many years of published content that they manage, it shows that it definitely is a debate worth having!