Topics and Partitions
5 min read Quiz at the end
Topics organise messages; partitions enable parallelism and ordering guarantees per key.
Topics and Partitions
# Create topic
kafka-topics.sh --create --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic orders --partitions 3 --replication-factor 1
# List topics
kafka-topics.sh --list --bootstrap-server localhost:9092
# Describe topic
kafka-topics.sh --describe --topic orders --bootstrap-server localhost:9092
# Delete topic
kafka-topics.sh --delete --topic orders --bootstrap-server localhost:9092
# Partitions allow parallel consumption
# Messages with same key go to same partition (ordering guaranteed)
# More partitions = more parallelism = more consumers
# Rule: partitions >= consumers in group
Topic Quiz · 1 questions
Test your understanding before moving on
1. What determines which partition a Kafka message goes to?
💡 If a key is set, Kafka hashes it to a consistent partition; without a key, round-robin is used.