If any Kafka-related extension is present (e.g. quarkus-smallrye-reactive-messaging-kafka), Dev Services for Kafka automatically starts a Kafka broker in dev mode and when running tests. So, you don’t have to start a broker manually. The application is configured automatically.

Because starting a Kafka broker can be long, Dev Services for Kafka uses Redpanda, a Kafka compatible broker which starts in ~1 second.

Enabling / Disabling Dev Services for Kafka

Dev Services for Kafka is automatically enabled unless:

  • quarkus.kafka.devservices.enabled is set to false

  • the kafka.bootstrap.servers is configured

  • all the Reactive Messaging Kafka channels have the bootstrap.servers attribute set

Dev Services for Kafka relies on Docker to start the broker. If your environment does not support Docker, you will need to start the broker manually, or connect to an already running broker. You can configure the broker address using kafka.bootstrap.servers.

Setting the port

By default, Dev Services for Kafka picks a random port and configure the application. You can set the port by configuring the quarkus.kafka.devservices.port property.

Note that the Kafka advertised address is automatically configured with the chosen port.

Configuring the image

By default, Dev Services for Kafka uses: vectorized/redpanda:latest. You can select any version from https://hub.docker.com/r/vectorized/redpanda.

Dev Services for Kafka only support Redpanda.