Show HN: Turn Kafka into an MQTT Broker for IoT with Zilla

Show HN: Turn Kafka into an MQTT Broker for IoT with Zilla(github.com)

24 points by luk212 2 years ago | 3 comments

luk212 2 years ago |

We’re building a Kafka-native, multi-protocol proxy called Zilla (https://github.com/aklivity/zilla)* that helps connect apps, clients, and services to Apache Kafka via stateless OpenAPI and AsyncAPIs.

We're excited to share that Zilla officially supports another protocol — MQTT! With this, MQTT clients can publish and subscribe to Kafka directly without running a dedicated MQTT broker and Kafka Connect. In fact, Zilla turns Kafka into a full-fledged MQTT broker, meaning it doesn’t just mediate between the MQTT and Kafka wire protocols but maintains MQTT client state across Kafka topics!

The latest Zilla feature highlights include: - MQTT v5 and v3.1.1 Support: Zilla supports both major versions of the MQTT protocol, ensuring it works with legacy and modern IoT clients. - MQTT-Kafka Proxying: Zilla maintains MQTT client state across Kafka topics, providing all of the features and guarantees of a dedicated MQTT broker, such as Keep-Alive, Last Will and Testament, and all three Quality of Service (QOS) agreements. MQTT over WebSocket is also supported, so you can use Zilla to deliver MQTT messages from Kafka down to a browser. - Manage Millions of Clients: Zilla is stateless, scales out linearly and handles MQTT to Kafka connection offloading.

You can quickly try out MQTT-Kafka proxying with Zilla with the following https://docs.aklivity.io/zilla/latest/how-tos/mqtt/mqtt.kafk... (the guide includes a docker compose file for quick and easy setup). We also have a fun Taxi Hailing Demo that simulates an IoT mobility use case powered by Zilla and Kafka for a more end-to-end setup: https://github.com/aklivity/zilla-demos/tree/main/taxi

Looking forward to all feedback and questions!

khaki54 2 years ago |

Love that you have 3 sample apps with it. Any well known applications using this right now?

luk212 2 years ago | |

Thanks and we have more coming! Yes, Zilla is deployed at a handful of companies. Notable ones are NBrown Group and a large German manufacturer that's big in the IoT space and starts with an "S" :).