{"slug": "kafka", "name": "Kafka", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "", "recommenders": 2, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 2.45, "rising": -0.65, "first": "2025-11-02", "latest": "2026-10-07", "why": "Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1, "compare": 2, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Kafka"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782598498, "item_id": 48912406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912406", "by": "jdw64", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I don't know the internals of Kafka, RabbitMQ, or PostgreSQL. I just know how to use them. And yet they work fine.", "excerpt": "Since GPT 5.2, AI has been writing code much better than I can. In 5.6, it beat Tourlist in competitive coding. After seeing that, I only practice about an hour a day just to keep the feel of coding. Honestly, rather than pointless debates about whether human coding is bad or AI coding is bad, I just think it's good to build tools that help me understand the world. I don't really care whether it's hand-coded or bad c", "context": "on-site programmer", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Tower Keeps Rising"}, {"id": 762673904, "item_id": 47667119, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47667119", "by": "roscas", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it.", "excerpt": "Oh what a huge article and a good read. Thank you. Ok, let's go. Why people use Kafka? Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it. RabbitMQ is also very good, don't have production experience on it, so I leave it for a specialist. Redis (or valkey.io) is also amazing and very fast. But for a tram system or any system that needs persistent record for a period of time, I use a Kafka cluster with minimum of 3 s", "context": "runs Kafka clusters in production", "use_case": "persistent streaming records", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Replaced Kafka, Redis, and RabbitMQ with One Tool \u2013 A Deep Dive into NATS"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "joaokwanza", "context": "senior backend engineer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49986323", "date": "2026-10-07"}, {"by": "jdw64", "context": "on-site programmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912406", "date": "2026-07-14"}, {"by": "roscas", "context": "runs Kafka clusters in production", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47667119", "date": "2026-04-06"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["high-scale messaging", "persistent streaming records", "event streaming"], "compared": [{"slug": "postgresql", "name": "PostgreSQL", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "rabbitmq", "name": "RabbitMQ", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "redis", "name": "Redis", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "sqlite", "name": "SQLite", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922568", "title": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909785", "title": "The Tower Keeps Rising", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805564", "title": "You probably don't need another database", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662866", "title": "I Replaced Kafka, Redis, and RabbitMQ with One Tool \u2013 A Deep Dive into NATS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793216", "title": "\"You Don't Need Kafka, Just Use Postgres\" Considered Harmful", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"compare": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 799781169, "item_id": 49986323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49986323", "by": "joaokwanza", "date": "2026-10-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis", "excerpt": "Location: Luanda, Angola (UTC+1) Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes, with visa sponsorship: Portugal/EU, Canada, UK, Australia; open to a retention agreement on relocation costs Technologies: TypeScript/Node.js, Go, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3, CloudFormation), Next.js/React, LLM agents, MCP R\u00e9sum\u00e9/CV: https://joaokwanza.com/cv.pdf Email: kwanzajoao04@gmail.com Senior backend & ", "context": "senior backend engineer", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)"}, {"id": 782598498, "item_id": 48912406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912406", "by": "jdw64", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I don't know the internals of Kafka, RabbitMQ, or PostgreSQL. I just know how to use them. And yet they work fine.", "excerpt": "Since GPT 5.2, AI has been writing code much better than I can. In 5.6, it beat Tourlist in competitive coding. After seeing that, I only practice about an hour a day just to keep the feel of coding. Honestly, rather than pointless debates about whether human coding is bad or AI coding is bad, I just think it's good to build tools that help me understand the world. I don't really care whether it's hand-coded or bad c", "context": "on-site programmer", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Tower Keeps Rising"}, {"id": 780913090, "item_id": 48807068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48807068", "by": "wuliwong", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "If I am at the scale where I really want Kafka, it is probably for performance and I just can't believe there's anyway Postgres could provide that.", "excerpt": "For context, I am mainly talking about my personal projects, ideas I am trying out, MVPs/prototypes for potential new businesses, etc. I have started just using Postgres to back queues. It is simpler (although I have spun up new apps with Redis so many times it is only a small improvement) but more importantly it is cheaper. I really do try a lot of stuff out, so completely removing a infrastructure piece is a nice m", "context": "builds personal projects and MVPs", "use_case": "high-scale messaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "You probably don't need another database"}, {"id": 762673904, "item_id": 47667119, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47667119", "by": "roscas", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it.", "excerpt": "Oh what a huge article and a good read. Thank you. Ok, let's go. Why people use Kafka? Because you can throw lava at it and it will eat it. RabbitMQ is also very good, don't have production experience on it, so I leave it for a specialist. Redis (or valkey.io) is also amazing and very fast. But for a tram system or any system that needs persistent record for a period of time, I use a Kafka cluster with minimum of 3 s", "context": "runs Kafka clusters in production", "use_case": "persistent streaming records", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Replaced Kafka, Redis, and RabbitMQ with One Tool \u2013 A Deep Dive into NATS"}, {"id": 732702736, "item_id": 45793921, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793921", "by": "atoav", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Use a system like Kafka if you need what it brings (a distributed event streaming platform).", "excerpt": "Could we please just agree not to use this \"considered harmful\" phrase to describe advice where the answer is \"depends\"? This kinda makes the author seem like he has lost the ability to consider what software is out there. That he is working for Kafka doesn't help. Example: Someone writes a software that could use something simple like SQLite, and they switched to Postgres for performance reasons. Now unless what Kaf", "context": "", "use_case": "event streaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "\"You Don't Need Kafka, Just Use Postgres\" Considered Harmful"}]}