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Apache Kafka Event Streaming product logo
  • AWSAvailable on Amazon Web Services
  • Azure· soonComing soon on Microsoft Azure
  • GCP· nextGoogle Cloud is next on the roadmap
Available

Apache Kafka Event Streaming

Apache Kafka 4.3.1 in KRaft mode - no ZooKeeper - as a combined broker and controller, with Kafka Connect, the AKHQ web UI for topics, messages and consumer groups, and Grafana with Prometheus, Kafka and node exporters and three ready-made dashboards. The advertised listener follows the instance's public address on every boot and every five minutes, so external producers and consumers keep working after a stop/start or an Elastic IP attach.

Version
v4.3.1
Operating system
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Architecture
x86_64
Support
Email support

What's installed

Every package and version on the image. Nothing else is installed.

  • Apache Kafka 4.3.1 (KRaft)
  • Kafka Connect 4.3.1
  • OpenJDK 25
  • AKHQ
  • Grafana 13.2.1
  • Prometheus 3.14.0
  • kafka_exporter 1.9.0
  • node_exporter 1.12.1
  • kcat

LicensingOpen source (Apache-2.0; Grafana AGPL-3.0), no licence key required

Deploy anywhere

Apache Kafka Event Streaming on AWS.

Google Cloud is next on the roadmap. One clean-room build, one first-boot credential model, one patch cadence — identical on every cloud you run. Every identifier below is the real one; copy it and launch.

  1. AWS

    Amazon Web Services

    AMI · v4.3.1

    Available
    AWS AMI ID

    Shown for your region on the AWS Marketplace launch page once you subscribe.

    Released
    Root volume
    gp3 · 20 GiB
    Instance types
    • t3a.large
    • t3.large
    • m6a.large
    • m6i.large
    Regions34 regions· show all
    • us-east-1
    • af-south-1
    • ap-east-1
    • ap-east-2
    • ap-northeast-1
    • ap-northeast-2
    • ap-northeast-3
    • ap-south-1
    • ap-south-2
    • ap-southeast-1
    • ap-southeast-2
    • ap-southeast-3
    • ap-southeast-4
    • ap-southeast-5
    • ap-southeast-6
    • ap-southeast-7
    • ca-central-1
    • ca-west-1
    • eu-central-1
    • eu-central-2
    • eu-north-1
    • eu-south-1
    • eu-south-2
    • eu-west-1
    • eu-west-2
    • eu-west-3
    • il-central-1
    • me-central-1
    • me-south-1
    • mx-central-1
    • sa-east-1
    • us-east-2
    • us-west-1
    • us-west-2
    Launch on AWS MarketplaceAWS launch steps

    5-day free trial, then from $0.06/hr software charge (larger instance sizes cost more) plus your own EC2 costs, billed by AWS.

    Subscriptions are open to AWS India (AISPL) accounts. Outside India? Ask us for a private build.

Getting started

From launch to signed in, step by step.

  1. Subscribe on AWS Marketplace and launch in your region with TCP 22, 8080 (AKHQ) and 3000 (Grafana) open, plus 9092 for clients - only from the addresses that need it; wait two to three minutes.

  2. AKHQ: http://<instance-public-ip>:8080. Grafana: http://<instance-public-ip>:3000. Both use username admin and your EC2 Instance ID as the password (for example i-0123456789abcdef0).

  3. Clients bootstrap at <instance-public-ip>:9092 (PLAINTEXT). Kafka Connect's REST API is on 8083 and Prometheus on 9090; open those only to trusted IP ranges.

  4. SSH as ubuntu with your key pair. kafka-info prints service status, URLs, topics and quick-start commands; kafka-passwords changes the AKHQ and Grafana passwords. The Kafka command-line tools are in /usr/local/kafka/bin, and kcat is installed.

Security posture

What this image does and does not ship with, one fact per line.

  • Clean-room build on Canonical's official Ubuntu 24.04 LTS image: every component comes from its own official repository or release, and nothing is copied from any third-party image.

  • No usable credential ships in the image; the AKHQ and Grafana admin passwords are set on your instance at first boot from EC2 instance metadata (IMDSv2) and the scripts that set them delete themselves afterwards.

  • SSH is key-only, and build-time SSH keys, shell history and logs were removed before imaging.

  • AKHQ requires a sign-in before it shows any topic, message or consumer group.

  • As in any standard Kafka installation, the client listener on 9092, the Kafka Connect REST API on 8083 and Prometheus on 9090 have no authentication of their own: anyone who can reach them can read and write topics or create connectors, so open them in your security group only to the IP ranges that need them, never to 0.0.0.0/0.

  • The bundled password tool enforces at least 10 characters with upper- and lower-case letters, a number and a symbol, and verifies the new credential with a real sign-in.

  • The web interfaces are HTTP-only by design: put them behind a load balancer with TLS or a VPN before exposing them publicly.