---
slug: conduktor
title: Conduktor - A Kafka GUI for Developers
authors: ssavva
tags: [ kafka, observability, conduktor, akhq ]
---

### Kafka GUI for Developers

KDH team is always looking for ways to improve experience in work with Kafka. [AKHQ](https://github.com/theorchard/kafka-connect/tree/master/akhq) has been extremely useful in monitoring and managing Kafka clusters, but it's time to explore some alternatives. [Conduktor](https://www.conduktor.io/) is a tool that we wanted to try for a while.


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## What is Conduktor?

Conduktor Console is a Kafka GUI for developers that provides a user-friendly interface for managing Kafka clusters. It offers a wide range of features, but we're going to focus on those that are most relevant to our work with Kafka.

## Main Features

### Cluster Management

The tool allows to connect to multiple Kafka clusters and manage them from a single interface.

### Topic Management

Conductor's UI for topic management looks user-friendly and intuitive. It allows to create, delete, and manage topics, including topic details, partitions, and configurations. 

![Create topic](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F01-create-topic.png)

### Produce Message

![02-produce-messages.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F02-produce-messages.png)

### View Messages

![03-view-messages.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F03-view-messages.png)

### Search Messages

![04-search-messages.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F04-search-messages.png)


### Consumer Management

Consumers information is also available including consumer lag and offsets.


## Integrations 

### Schema Registry

Schema Registry is integrated with Conduktor and covers all our needs with some minor additional features.

#### Create schema

![05-create-schema.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F05-create-schema.png)

#### View schema

![06-view-schema.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F06-view-schema.png)


### Kafka Connect

Kafka connectors can be added to the console and be managed from the UI if needed.

#### Connectors management

![07-kafka-connect-management.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F07-kafka-connect-management.png)


### ksqlDB

Conduktor has a built-in ksqlDB editor and stream viewer. From the first try it looks a little bit rough, but it's better comparing to what we have right now.

#### ksqlDB Editor

![08-ksql-editor.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F08-ksql-editor.png)

#### ksqlDB Streams

![09-ksql-stream-view.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F09-ksql-stream-view.png)

#### ksqlDB Query

![10-ksql-query.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F10-ksql-query.png)


### Other Features

#### Data Masking

Conduktor supports data masking for sensitive data in messages.

**Adding a new mask policy**

![11-data-masking-policy.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F11-data-masking-policy.png)

**Masked data**

![12-data-masking-result.png](2024-03-05-conduktor%2F12-data-masking-result.png)



#### Others

Coductor supports many more features, but they might not be relevant for us at this moment. Some of them are:

- **Monitoring**: View and monitor Kafka cluster metrics and logs.
- **Alerts**: Set up alerts for Kafka cluster and consumer group metrics.
- **Integration**: Integration with Confluent Cloud and other cloud providers.
- **Chaos Engineering**: Simulate network partitions and broker failures to test Kafka cluster resilience.
- **Kafka ACLs Management**: View and manage Kafka ACLs to control authorization for your clusters data.


### Use in Production

#### Setup

Conduktor Console has own Docker image and can be configured using environment variables or a configuration file. It looks similar to AKHQ so no big difference in terms of setup.

#### Authentication

The service supports Okta integration, which could be beneficial for us.

#### Dependencies

Conduktor Console requiries an additional database running to store its data.

#### Pricing

Conduktor Console has a free plan, but it's limited to use with only one broker. For full use it requires a subscription (the prices are not revealed on their web page).


## Conclusion

Conduktor Console looks like a nice tool for managing Kafka clusters. It has a user-friendly interface and a wide range of features that are beneficial for work with Kafka. But after a quick review, it's hard to find anything that is useful in our work and not covered by AKHQ. Other than that probably the biggest disadvantage is that Conduktor is not free. So, for now it's not worth to switch from AKHQ to Conduktor.
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