Kafdrop vs Kowl

Overview

Kafdrop

Stacks13

Followers25

Votes0

GitHub Stars6.0K

Forks887

Kowl

Stacks12

Followers17

Votes0

Kafdrop vs Kowl: What are the differences?

Kafdrop and Kowl are two popular tools used for monitoring and managing Apache Kafka clusters. While they serve similar purposes, there are several key differences that set them apart from each other.

Setup and Deployment: Kafdrop is a lightweight, open-source Kafka web UI that is easy to set up and deploy. It does not require any additional software or infrastructure and can be run as a standalone application. On the other hand, Kowl is more complex to set up and deploy as it requires additional components such as Confluent REST Proxy and Confluent Schema Registry. It also needs a separate infrastructure to run properly.
User Interface: Kafdrop provides a simple and intuitive user interface that allows users to easily navigate through Kafka topics, messages, and consumer groups. It offers a streamlined view of Kafka clusters and enables efficient monitoring and management of the system. Kowl, on the other hand, offers a more advanced user interface with additional features such as message search, filtering, and schema management. It provides a more comprehensive view of the Kafka ecosystem.
Compatibility and Integration: Kafdrop is compatible with any Kafka version and can be used with any Kafka distribution, making it a versatile choice for users. Kowl, on the other hand, is specifically designed for use with the Confluent platform and works seamlessly with other Confluent components such as Kafka Connect and Control Center. It offers enhanced integration capabilities with the entire Confluent ecosystem.
Security and Authentication: Kafdrop does not provide built-in security features and does not support authentication or authorization mechanisms. It is primarily intended for local development or non-production environments. Kowl, on the other hand, offers advanced security features such as SSL encryption, user authentication, and fine-grained access control. It is suitable for use in enterprise environments where security is a top priority.
Performance and Scalability: Kafdrop is known for its lightweight nature and low resource consumption, making it highly performant and scalable. It can handle large volumes of Kafka data without any performance degradation. Kowl, on the other hand, requires more resources and may experience performance impacts when dealing with high data loads or large Kafka clusters.
Community and Support: Kafdrop has a vibrant and active open-source community that provides support, updates, and bug fixes. It is widely adopted and has a large user base, leading to a strong community presence. Kowl, being a part of the Confluent ecosystem, benefits from the support and expertise of the Confluent team. It receives regular updates and support from the Confluent community.

In summary, Kafdrop is a lightweight, easy-to-use Kafka web UI with versatile compatibility, while Kowl is a more comprehensive tool designed specifically for the Confluent platform, offering advanced features and enhanced security.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Kafdrop	Kowl
It is a web UI for viewing Kafka topics and browsing consumer groups. The tool displays information such as brokers, topics, partitions, consumers, and lets you view messages.	It is a web application that helps you to explore messages in your Apache Kafka cluster and get better insights on what is actually happening in your Kafka cluster in the most comfortable way.
View Kafka brokers — topic and partition assignments, and controller status; View topics — partition count, replication status, and custom configuration; Browse messages — JSON, plain text and Avro encoding; View consumer groups — per-partition parked offsets, combined and per-partition lag; Create new topics; View ACLs; Support for Azure Event Hubs	Supports Kafka Clusters newer than v1.0+; Topic overview; Show disk usage per topic or per broker; List all consumer groups of a given topic; List topic configuration; Message viewer; Avro, JSON, XML, ASCII and binary support; Search specific message using any filters written in JavaScript; Consumer group lag monitoring; Very good UI & UX
Statistics
GitHub Stars 6.0K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 887	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 13	Stacks 12
Followers 25	Followers 17
Votes 0	Votes 0
Integrations
Kafka	Kafka

What are some alternatives to Kafdrop, Kowl?

Kafka Manager

This interface makes it easier to identify topics which are unevenly distributed across the cluster or have partition leaders unevenly distributed across the cluster. It supports management of multiple clusters, preferred replica election, replica re-assignment, and topic creation. It is also great for getting a quick bird’s eye view of the cluster.

Kafka REST

It provides a RESTful interface to a Kafka cluster. It makes it easy to produce and consume messages, view the state of the cluster, and perform administrative actions without using the native Kafka protocol or clients. Examples of use cases include reporting data to Kafka from any frontend app built in any language, ingesting messages into a stream processing framework that doesn't yet support Kafka, and scripting administrative actions.

rdkafka

This gem is a modern Kafka client library for Ruby based on librdkafka. It wraps the production-ready C client using the ffi gem and targets Kafka 1.0+ and Ruby 2.3+.

Kafka UI

It is a simple tool that makes your data flows observable, helps find and troubleshoot issues faster and deliver optimal performance. Its lightweight dashboard makes it easy to track key metrics of your Kafka clusters - Brokers, Topics, Partitions, Production, and Consumption.

KafkaHQ

It is a Kafka GUI for topics, topics data, consumers group, schema registry, connect and more. It works with modern Kafka cluster.

Lenses

It is a simple and secure self service DataOps platform, to operate with confidence on Apache Kafka & Kubernetes.

DoctorKafka

DoctorKafka can automatically detect broker failure and reassign the workload on the failed nodes to other nodes. DoctorKafka can also perform load balancing based on topic partitions's network usage, and makes sure that broker network usage does not exceed the defined settings.

KafkaCenter

It is a unified one-stop platform for Kafka cluster management and maintenance, producer / consumer monitoring, and use of ecological components.

Kattlo CLI

It is for enterprises that need a stable way to change Apache Kafka configurations. It maintains the configuration and avoids drifts.

Monokl

It is an open source downloadable desktop tool that works across all platforms and provides a simple way to visualize the performance of your Kafka cluster.

Related Comparisons

Kafdrop vs Kowl: What are the differences?

Setup and Deployment: Kafdrop is a lightweight, open-source Kafka web UI that is easy to set up and deploy. It does not require any additional software or infrastructure and can be run as a standalone application. On the other hand, Kowl is more complex to set up and deploy as it requires additional components such as Confluent REST Proxy and Confluent Schema Registry. It also needs a separate infrastructure to run properly.
User Interface: Kafdrop provides a simple and intuitive user interface that allows users to easily navigate through Kafka topics, messages, and consumer groups. It offers a streamlined view of Kafka clusters and enables efficient monitoring and management of the system. Kowl, on the other hand, offers a more advanced user interface with additional features such as message search, filtering, and schema management. It provides a more comprehensive view of the Kafka ecosystem.
Compatibility and Integration: Kafdrop is compatible with any Kafka version and can be used with any Kafka distribution, making it a versatile choice for users. Kowl, on the other hand, is specifically designed for use with the Confluent platform and works seamlessly with other Confluent components such as Kafka Connect and Control Center. It offers enhanced integration capabilities with the entire Confluent ecosystem.
Security and Authentication: Kafdrop does not provide built-in security features and does not support authentication or authorization mechanisms. It is primarily intended for local development or non-production environments. Kowl, on the other hand, offers advanced security features such as SSL encryption, user authentication, and fine-grained access control. It is suitable for use in enterprise environments where security is a top priority.
Performance and Scalability: Kafdrop is known for its lightweight nature and low resource consumption, making it highly performant and scalable. It can handle large volumes of Kafka data without any performance degradation. Kowl, on the other hand, requires more resources and may experience performance impacts when dealing with high data loads or large Kafka clusters.
Community and Support: Kafdrop has a vibrant and active open-source community that provides support, updates, and bug fixes. It is widely adopted and has a large user base, leading to a strong community presence. Kowl, being a part of the Confluent ecosystem, benefits from the support and expertise of the Confluent team. It receives regular updates and support from the Confluent community.

Kafdrop vs Kowl

Overview