[Replacement]: kafkajs abandoned

[mcollina]

Package to replace

kafkajs

Suggested replacement(s)

• https://github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-javascript
• https://github.com/platformatic/kafka

Manifest type

preferred (lighter or more modern alternative package)

Rationale

kafkajs has been abandoned by their maintainers tulios/kafkajs#1603.

The confluent client is the “official” one from the company behind Kafka. However it has a native addon. Platformatic/kafka (our version) is faster and pure-TS. Both are solid options for different reasons.

Availability

No response

Code example (optional)

[43081j]

seems like a good suggestion to me 👍

both have some usage already and the call for maintainers seems to have been inconclusive (no publishes since 2 years ago).

we should add a doc which lists both alternatives.

[mcollina]

let me know how I can help

[43081j]

if you want to have a stab at doing the PR, it should basically be like this one:
https://github.com/e18e/module-replacements/pull/767/changes

but there would be two entries in the doc and the replacements.

note that the replacements of a mapping are ordered by preference (i.e. which we recommend first). so, for now at least, I would have ["@confluentinc/kafka-javascript", "@platformatic/kafka"] purely because the platformatic one isn't as widely used/battle tested yet.

i wouldn't be against switching them around once it gains a bit more traction, since the platformatic one is much smaller too.

if others think we should just order them that way now (particularly curious what core team thinks - e.g. @dreyfus92 or @ghostdevv ), i could be swayed too 😄 since it is faster and smaller

[dreyfus92]

hey @mcollina, thanks for opening this and offering to help with the PR 😄

i'd lean toward @platformatic/kafka first. the ordering signals what we recommend for new adopters, and for someone picking a client today, pure-TS with no native addon is a meaningful difference (install friction, cross-platform, bundling). battle-tested matters more for migrations, and folks migrating will read the doc and see both options anyway.