# Kafka fundamentals

Learn the core concepts that power Apache Kafka. This guide covers everything you need to understand how Kafka works under the hood.

## Learning path

Work through these topics in order to build a solid foundation:

### 1. Core concepts
- [**What are Kafka topics?**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-topics) - learn about topics, partitions, and offsets
- [**Kafka producers**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-producers) - how applications send data to Kafka
- [**Kafka consumers**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-consumers) - how applications read data from Kafka

### 2. Advanced concepts
- [**Consumer groups and offsets**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-consumer-groups-and-consumer-offsets) - understanding consumer coordination
- [**Kafka brokers**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-brokers) - the servers that make up a Kafka cluster
- [**Topic replication**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-topic-replication) - how Kafka ensures data durability

### 3. Infrastructure
- [**ZooKeeper**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/zookeeper-with-kafka) - Kafka's coordination service (legacy)
- [**KRaft mode**](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-kraft-mode) - Kafka without ZooKeeper (modern approach)

## What you'll learn

After completing this section, you'll have a deep understanding of:

- **Data flow**: how messages move through Kafka
- **Scalability**: how Kafka handles millions of messages
- **Reliability**: how Kafka ensures no data loss
- **Architecture**: how all components work together

## Next steps

- [Start with Kafka topics](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-topics) to understand the foundation of how Kafka organizes data
- [Learn how producers write data](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-producers) to see how events get into Kafka
- [Learn how consumers read data](https://www.conduktor.io/kafka/kafka-consumers) to understand the other side of the pipeline