Last updated January 22, 2026

This add-on is operated by INT3

Real-time data without the headache. Fully managed Kafka. Budget-friendly.

The KafkaCluster add-on provides a high-performance, fully managed Apache Kafka environment designed to handle massive data streams with zero operational overhead. Whether you’re building a modern microservices architecture or a real-time analytics engine, this add-on removes the complexity of managing distributed systems so you can focus on writing code.

About KafkaCluster

Kafka serves as the central data backbone for your entire infrastructure. With this add-on, you can implement:

• Queue and Task Processing: Use Kafka as a highly scalable message queue to distribute tasks across a pool of worker processes. Distributing workloads ensures you’re reliably processing background jobs like email delivery, image resizing, or order fulfillment.

• Microservices Orchestration: Use Kafka as a reliable message broker to decouple services, allowing them to communicate asynchronously and scale independently.

• Real-Time Analytics: Build pipelines that process events, such as user activity, financial transactions, or IoT sensor data, the moment they occur.

• Log Aggregation: Centralize logs from across your entire infrastructure to gain a unified view of system health and performance.

• Event Sourcing: Store a complete, immutable history of application state changes useful for auditing or replaying events.

Key Benefits

• Fully Managed: We handle the provisioning, patching, and infrastructure maintenance for you.

• Developer Friendly: The add-on automatically injects all necessary connection details directly into your app’s environment so you can get started in seconds.

• Enterprise-Grade Security: Built-in support for SASL authentication ensures that your data streams are protected and accessible only by authorized services.

• High Availability: Designed for reliability, ensuring your data remains durable and your streams stay online even during heavy traffic spikes.

Provisioning the Add-on

Use the CLI to attach KafkaCluster to a Heroku application:

$ heroku addons:create kafkacluster
Creating kafkacluster on kafkacluster-acute-62240... free
Your add-on has been provisioned successfully

After provisioning, the add-on sets extra environment variables for your app that you can use to connect to the cluster. The config variablesKAFKACLUSTER_USERNAME, KAFKACLUSTER_PASSWORD, KAFKACLUSTER_SASL_METHOD and KAFKACLUSTER_BROKERS contain a list of brokers separated by a comma.

​​You can see a config var via the heroku config:get command:

$ heroku config:get KAFKACLUSTER_USERNAME

Rate Limits

All Starter and Basic plans enforce strict produce and consume quotas, or rate limits, determined by the subscribed plan level.

Dashboard and Management

The KafkaCluster dashboard provides an easy-to-use interface to manage your data infrastructure without using the command line. From the dashboard, you can:

• Manage Resources: Create and configure Topics and Consumer Groups.

• Check Quotas and Replication Details: Track your real-time throughput quotas (kB/s) and resource quotas to ensure your application stays within its performance limits.

• Access Credentials: Retrieve all connection details and security credentials needed for your client applications.

• See Getting Started Guides: Use our code examples to get started quickly with producing and consuming messages.

Access the dashboard via the CLI:

$ heroku addons:open kafkacluster
Opening kafkacluster for kafkacluster-acute-62240

or by visiting the Heroku Dashboard and selecting the application in question. Select KafkaCluster from the Add-ons menu.

Migrating Between Plans

Use the heroku addons:upgrade command to migrate to a new plan.

$ heroku addons:upgrade kafkacluster:newplan
-----> Upgrading kafkacluster:newplan to kafkacluster-acute-62240.. done, v18 ($20/mo)
       Your plan has been updated to: kafkacluster:newplan

Removing the Add-on

It’s recommended to back up all the topics data before deprovisioning the add-on.

Remove KafkaCluster via the CLI:

$ heroku addons:destroy kafkacluster
-----> Removing kafkacluster from kafkacluster-acute-62240... done, v20 (free)

Support

Submit all KafkaCluster support and runtime issues via one of the Heroku Support channels. Any non-support-related issues or product feedback is welcome at hello@streamabyss.com.