The most popular choice for enterprise developers. It includes Schema Registry, Connect, and KSQLDB, though it runs on a proprietary license for commercial features.
services: zookeeper: image: confluentinc/cp-zookeeper:latest environment: ZOOKEEPER_CLIENT_PORT: 2181 kafka: image: confluentinc/cp-kafka:latest depends_on: [zookeeper] ports: ["9092:9092"] environment: KAFKA_ZOOKEEPER_CONNECT: zookeeper:2181 Use code with caution. 4. Key Configuration Parameters download kafka docker image
Pulling the Official Apache Kafka Image (Recommended for 2026) docker pull apache/kafka:latest Use code with caution. To download a specific, stable version (e.g., 4.2.0): docker pull apache/kafka:4.2.0 Use code with caution. Pulling Confluent Kafka docker pull confluentinc/cp-kafka:latest Use code with caution. 3. Running Kafka with Docker Compose (Recommended) The most popular choice for enterprise developers