Retained history or work dispatch?#
| Requirement | Kafka often fits | Traditional queue often fits |
|---|---|---|
| Replay and retained history | Central capability | May be secondary or limited |
| Many independent readers | Consumer groups | Subscriptions may provide it |
| Work dispatch | Possible, with partition model | Natural competing-consumer model |
| Delay, priority, per-message lease | Not the primary abstraction | Often natural |
| Ordering | Partition-scoped | Product and queue-type dependent |
Kafka is not “better.” Use it when event history, replay, throughput, keyed ordering, and independent groups justify its operational model.
Related practice problems
Use the manifest-backed prompts below to apply this lesson in a complete design.
- Apache Kafka introductionApache Kafka Documentation
- RabbitMQ reliability guideRabbitMQ Documentation
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