Redpanda Has a Free Streaming Platform — Kafka-Compatible Without the JVM Overhead

Redpanda is a Kafka-compatible streaming data platform written in C++ — no JVM, no ZooKeeper. What You Get for Free Kafka API compatible — use existing Kafka clients, no code changes No JVM — C++ with thread-per-core, predictable latency No ZooKeeper — built-in Raft consensus Single binary — simple deployment Schema Registry — built-in, Confluent-compatible HTTP Proxy — produce/consume via REST API Transforms — inline data transformations (WASM) Console — web UI for topic management Redpanda Cloud — free tier with 1GB throughput Quick Start # Docker docker run -d --name redpanda -p 9092:9092 -p 8082:8082 \ docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:latest \ redpanda start --smp 1 --memory 1G # Use any Kafka client — same API kafka-topics.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --create --topic my-topic kafka-console-producer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic my-topic Why Teams Switch from Kafka Kafka needs JVM tuning, ZooKeeper, and a DevOps team: 10x simpler — single binary, no