kcat ☆
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Description:
Generic command-line non-JVM Apache Kafka producer and consumer
Type: Formula  |  Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  @edenhill  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: Developer tools
Tags: kafka streaming messaging cli debugging
Install: brew install kcat
About:
Kcat (formerly kafkacat) is a versatile command-line tool for interacting with Apache Kafka clusters. It allows users to produce messages to topics and consume messages from topics without writing any application code. Its primary value is providing a lightweight, dependency-free utility for debugging, data ingestion, and stream inspection.
Key Features:
  • High-performance producer and consumer capabilities
  • Supports JSON, Avro, and binary payload formats
  • Zero-dependency binary for easy deployment
  • Metadata inspection for brokers, topics, and consumer groups
Use Cases:
  • Debugging Kafka connectivity and data flow issues
  • Injecting test data or JSON payloads into topics
  • Inspecting live topic messages for troubleshooting
  • Piping data from other CLI tools into Kafka streams
Alternatives:
  • kafka-console-producer/consumer – Official Java-based tools; heavier resource footprint and requires JVM.
  • ConsoleConsumer/ConsoleProducer – Part of the Confluent Platform; often requires specific configuration files.
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 12, 2025 7:59am 1 VERSION_BUMP 05519b5b
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