Redpanda

Redpanda is a streaming data platform compatible with the Kafka API. Implemented in C++ with a thread-per-core architecture, it ships as a single binary with built-in Raft consensus — no ZooKeeper, JVM, or separate coordination layer to operate.

Existing Kafka clients, Connect pipelines, and stream processors work against Redpanda unchanged. The platform emphasizes low tail latency, reduced operational surface, and hardware efficiency; tiered storage offloads history to object storage.

Redpanda's core is source-available under the BSL (not OSI open source), with commercial enterprise features and a managed cloud. It is typically evaluated as a drop-in Kafka alternative when operational simplicity or latency is the driving concern.