Get Kafka-Nated, Bonus Episode: A tale of Kafka Past, Current, and Future
Join us for “A Kristmas Kafka,” an informal technical roundtable with Apache Kafka committers, contributors, and community leaders.
We’re gathering the people who build and shape Kafka to explore where the project has been, where it is today, and where it’s heading next. No marketing, no product pitches—just a dense, technical conversation about architecture, innovation, and the future of streaming systems.
In this episode, we’ll discuss:
- How major architectural decisions shaped Kafka’s evolution
- Diskless Kafka: why it matters and what it unlocks
- Kafka + Iceberg: real-world use cases and implications
- The evolution of queues and the current state of the ecosystem
- The big KIPs that changed direction this year
- BYOC, SaaS, and shifting dynamics in the streaming market
- What’s next for Kafka, data infrastructure, and AI-driven workloads
Whether you work with Kafka daily or want to understand how the ecosystem is changing, this conversation offers insights from those closest to the code.
Date: Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Time: 11:30 AM UK (GMT)
Participants:
Stanislav Kozlovski
Josep Prat
Anatoly Zelenin
Luke Chen
Host:
Hugh Leonard Evans