What is the difference between RabbitMQ and Kafka?
Answer
RabbitMQ and Kafka are both message brokers but serve different use cases. RabbitMQ: traditional message broker. Messages are deleted after acknowledgement — no replay. Supports complex routing patterns (direct, fanout, topic, headers). Suited for task queues, RPC patterns, and complex routing logic. Each message is typically processed by one consumer. Lower throughput than Kafka but simpler for task-based workloads. Kafka: distributed event streaming platform. Messages are retained on disk for days/weeks — consumers can replay. Simple append-only log per topic partition. Suited for high-throughput event streaming, log aggregation, and analytics. Can deliver the same message to multiple consumer groups independently. Much higher throughput. Rule of thumb: use RabbitMQ when you need complex routing, per-message acknowledgement, or traditional messaging semantics. Use Kafka when you need high throughput, event replay, or multiple independent consumers of the same events.