Introduction to Best Kafka Books
Kafka books explain how Kafka is a data streaming technology that helps conduct smooth backend operations and interactive user frontend. The stream-processing platform is an open-source system. It is a distributed store that handles data feeds in real-time. Kafka Connect helps the user to connect with external systems and the libraries aid in stream processing applications. It uses a TCP-based binary protocol with a “message set,” reducing roundtrip overheads to deal with larger network packets and disk operations in sequence. It handles user experiences driven by events on the web by companies like Netflix, Pinterest, and Airbnb.
The list of Kafka books we have compiled below will give the readers a clear understanding of Kafka. These Kafka books are necessary for everyone looking to further their knowledge or career progress.
| Sr. No. | Books | Author | Published | Rating (out of 5) |
| 1. | Kafka: The Definitive Guide: Real-Time Data and Stream Processing at Scale
|
Neha Narkhede, Gwen Shapira, Todd Palino | 2017 | Amazon: 4.6
Goodreads: 4.14 |
| 2. | Kafka Streams in Action: Real-time apps and microservices with the Kafka Streams API
|
Bill Bejeck | 2018 | Amazon:4.4
Goodreads: 4.04 |
| 3. | Event Streams in Action: Real-time event systems with Kafka and Kinesis
|
Alexander Dean,Valentin Crettaz | 2019 | Amazon: 4.5
Goodreads: 3.00 |
| 4. | Building Data Streaming Applications with Apache Kafka: Design, develop and streamline applications using Apache Kafka, Storm, Heron, and Spark.
|
Manish Kumar, Chanchal Singh | 2017 | Amazon: 4.1
Goodreads: 2.73 |
| 5. | Kafka Streams – Real-time Stream Processing
|
Prashant Kumar Pandey | 2019 | Amazon:4.7
Goodreads: 4.67
|
| 6. | Streaming Architecture: New Designs Using Apache Kafka and MapR Streams
|
Ted Dunning, Ellen Friedman | 2016 | Amazon: 4.5
Goodreads: 3.41
|
| 7. | Effective Kafka: A Hands-On Guide to Building Robust and Scalable Event-Driven Applications with Code Examples in Java
|
Emil Koutanov |
2021 |
Amazon 4.5
Goodreads- 4.59
|
| 8. | Mastering Kafka Streams and ksqlDB: Building Real-Time Data Systems by Example
|
Mitch Seymour | 2021 | Amazon: 4.7 Goodreads: 4.18
|
| 9. | Learning Apache Kafka – Second Edition
|
Nishant Garg | 2015 | Amazon 2.8 Goodreads- 2.54
|
| 10. | Apache Kafka 1.0 Cookbook: Over 100 practical recipes on using distributed enterprise messaging to handle real-time data
|
Raúl Estrada | 2017 | Amazon: 3.6
Goodreads: 1.50
|
Let’s review each of Kafka books to assist you in selecting the right one for you.
Book #1: Kafka: The Definitive Guide: Real-Time Data and Stream Processing at Scale
Authors: Neha Narkhede, Gwen Shapira, Todd Palino
Get this book here.
Review:
This book offers the takeaway of using Kafka’s APIs for installing, configuring, and observing the open-source distributed platform. There are real-life examples and experiences of engineers who deployed Kafka accompanied by labeled diagrams of the functioning of Kafka’s streams. This guide takes us on a self-learning journey as it appropriately defines each stage of using Kafka, from installing on a single node and multiple nodes to learning about the platform architecture.
Key Points:
- The book outlines message producers, Java API for publishing and consuming, internals regarding Kafka, etc.
- The author provides a detailed analysis of JVM clients, monitoring, and metrics with easy-to-follow steps for enhancing knowledge.
- The reader explores the workings of Kafka’s stream delivery that makes it the best stream processing system.
Book #2: Kafka Streams in Action: Real-time Apps and Microservices with the Kafka Streams API
Author: Bill Bejeck
Get this book here.
Review:
The author presents an extensive guide on implementing stream processing in Kafka. The reader learns about collecting, transforming, and handling multiple data. This comprehensive book leaves you wanting more with its focus on core key concepts and readable coding examples.
Key Points:
- The book is suitable for beginners with no prerequisite knowledge of Kafka.
- The reader must have some basic knowledge of distributed systems.
- Major highlights on using Kstreams API, segregating data, processing API, and administering Kafka streams.
Book #3: Event Streams in Action: Real-time Event Systems with Kafka and Kinesis
Authors: Alexander Dean, Valentin Crettaz
Get this book here.
Review:
Taking the complexities of event streaming technologies and metamorphosing them into a brilliant book on event-centered software architecture is something that this book does without breaking any sweat. The author uses a lot of platforms to base the reader’s decisions on implementing code with tools such as Apache Kafka, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, Apache Spark Streaming, etc.
Key Points:
- The author has explained the topics of continuous event streams very meticulously.
- The book explores building, deploying, and curating applications.
- The reader understands lambda architecture, advanced stream patterns, large-scale data-driven applications, etc.
Book #4: Building Data Streaming Applications with Apache Kafka: Design, develop, and streamline applications using Apache Kafka, Storm, Heron, and Spark
Authors: Manish Kumar, Chanchal Singh
Get this book here.
Review:
A comprehensive compilation of designing, developing, and implementing Kafka streams meanwhile handling big-scale data. The user learns to design and manage a prompt and dependable messaging system. It is a comprehensive book for anyone who wants to read more about different tools in the Kafka ecosystem.
Key Points:
- The book guides building real-time streaming applications in Apache for real-time processing.
- It covers topics such as mastering the core Kafka APIs, Designing adept streaming applications with Kafka, Etc.
- The reader learns to process data streams of Kafka APIs and set up clusters and message writing.
Book #5: Kafka Streams – Real-time Stream Processing
Author: Prashant Kumar Pandey
Get this book here.
Review:
Enhancing the knowledge of core concepts of real-time processing through Kafka since 2019, this book bridges the gap between Kafka capabilities and Kafka programming with mindfully written theory and code snippets revolving around real-time streams, Kafka consumers, aggregates, tables, etc. The book demands some level of expertise in programming. The author has kept the software engineers who deal with Real-time Stream Processing with the aid of the Kafka Streams library.
Key Points:
- Lays a brief overview of topics like streaming concepts, Kafka consumers, Kafka streams API, streams architecture, etc.
- The book is a comprehensive combination of streaming sites with Apache Kafka version 2.1.
- It is helpful to those working with data-centric architecture.
Book #6: Streaming Architecture: New Designs Using Apache Kafka and MapR Streams
Authors: Ted Dunning, Ellen Friedman
Get this book here.
Review:
The book is an introductory guide to emerging stream applications and topics such as upstream queuing, message passing layer, etc. The author highlights the effects of Kafka and maps streams, making the book interesting for further exploration.
Key Points:
- The book further discusses the topics of fraud detection, geo-distributed data streams, stream-based architectures in supporting microservices, etc.
- The reader grasps modern design concepts with stream processing and analytics.
- It includes discussions on new technologies for messaging like MapR Streams and Apache Kafka.
- The book includes supportive links to code parallel to the topics in discussion.
Book #7: Effective Kafka: A Hands-On Guide to Building Robust and Scalable Event-Driven Applications with Code Examples in Java
Author: Emil Koutanov
Get this book here.
Review:
A contemporary collection of Apache Kafka that scales big event-driven architecture, the underlying software, building stream processing applications using Java 11, and more in this book. This book is unlike any other you have seen as it has its unique format among the competing books in the Kafka domain.
Key Points:
- The author ensures that the user gets a grip on the basics of Kafka before diving deeper into complex topics such as working behind Kafka consumer group membership, etc.
- The book includes a presence and an architectural perspective with its illustrious diagrams and significant structure based on real-time software problems.
- It covers the core concepts of architecture like load-balancing, partitioning, parallelism, and other underlying components of software.
Book #8: Mastering Kafka Streams and ksqlDB: Building Real-Time Data Systems by Example
Author: Mitch Seymour
Get this book here.
Review:
The author brings about a compilation of topics concerning highly stream processing. Knowing about ksqlDBand Kafka prepares the reader for other technologies required in data pipelining. The stream process concepts are backed with business practices, making the content more meaningful for the reader.
Key Points:
- The reader learns about the pub/sub patterns in communication.
- The author has written the book while keeping the data scientists, analysts, and data engineers in mind, looking to brush up their skills on Kafka.
- The content dives into ksqlDB’s data integration features, Kafka ConnectWork with different types of collections in ksqlDB, and Deploying your Kafka Streams and ksqlDB applications to production.
Book #9: Learning Apache Kafka
Author: Nishant Garg
Get this book here.
Review:
The author has kept beginners and professionals in mind while writing the book. It is easy to follow with simple textual concepts outlining only the topics of Kafka, which are essential for understanding and refining one’s knowledge.
Key Points:
- The key audience of this book is developers who are learning to dive into the world of Apache Kafka for the first time.
- The book contains topics such as the internal functioning of Kafka, how to implement Kafka, and many more.
- The book guides handling messages from multiple clients worth hundreds of megabytes in just a second.
Book #10: Apache Kafka 1.0 Cookbook: Over 100 practical recipes on using distributed enterprise messaging to handle real-time data.
Authors: Raúl Estrada.
Get this book here.
Review:
Bringing you practical exposure to Apache Kafka, the author has carefully curated for beginners from any field of software development. The book heavily streamlines the best content for anyone, beginning with the confluent platform, graphite, and ganglia tools with Kafka. It further integrates topics with Kafka streams such as Hadoop, logs stash, etc.
Key Points:
- The author takes you on a joyful ride from installing and configuring to finding optimal solutions on Apache Kafka 1.0
- The content covers lessons on Kafka streams, third-party tools integration, etc.
- The user configures producers and consumers and learns the mirroring technique.
Recommended Books
Our article on the top 10 Kafka books aims to help you. For more such books, EDUCBA recommends the following,
