Apache Kafka is a fast, scalable, and durable distributed publish-subscribe messaging system. It uses a distributed commit log architecture to allow for publishing and subscribing to streams of records over a cluster of servers. Many large companies use Apache Kafka as the backbone for their real-time data pipelines due to its ability to handle large volumes of data across multiple systems like Hadoop and Storm. While powerful, Kafka does have some downsides like requiring ZooKeeper for coordination and its complex consumer processes.
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