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Once ZK mode is removed in Kafka 4.0, we will be able to avoid maintaining parallel codebases for important infrastructure such as the Kafka controller.

Release Timeline

Note: this timeline is very rough and subject to change. However, it's intended to help people associated dates with release numbers. We are assuming that Kafka will continue to use time-based releases that happen every 4 months.

Kafka 3.3 (released)

• August 2022
• /08: KRaft mode declared production-ready in

Kafka 3.4 (released)

• January 2023
• Migration 32022/01: Upgrade from ZK mode supported in as Early Access (EA)

Kafka 3.5

• April 2023
• SCRAM support added for KRaft
• ZK mode deprecated
• Migration from ZK mode supported as Preview.

Kafka 3.6

• August 2023
• Migration from ZK mode supported as GA.

Kafka 3.7

• December 2023
• Final release with ZK mode

Kafka 4.0

• April 2024
• Only
4 as early access.
• 2023/04: Kafka 3.5 released with both KRaft and ZK support. Upgrade from ZK goes production. ZooKeeper mode deprecated.
• 2023: Additional 3.x releases
• 2024/xx: Kafka 4.0 released with only KRaft mode supported.

Missing Features

As of the date of writing, several features have not yet been implemented in KRaft mode.

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• Supporting JBOD configurations with multiple storage directories
• Modifying certain dynamic configurations on the standalone KRaft controller
• Delegation tokens
• Upgrade from ZooKeeper mode

While the lack of these features in the current KRaft codebase is frustrating, we expect to close these gaps over the course of the next few months.The last omission (upgrade from ZK) is the most significant. We expect to release a KIP soon describing in detail how the upgrade from ZK mode will work. An early access release of this work will be part of the Kafka 3.4 release.

Compatibility, Deprecation, and Migration Plan

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