Running Kafka on Kubernetes with Strimzi

Calendar February 22, 2026
Kubernetes
Intermediate
Kafka-Deployment, Strimzi-Operator, Kafka-Topic-Management, Kafka-Monitoring
Kafka, Strimzi, Messaging, Streaming, Operator
Kubectl, Helm, Kafka-Cli

Running Kafka on Kubernetes with Strimzi#

Running Kafka on Kubernetes without an operator is painful. You need StatefulSets, headless Services, init containers for broker ID assignment, and careful handling of storage and networking. Strimzi eliminates most of this by managing the entire Kafka lifecycle through Custom Resource Definitions.

Installing Strimzi#

# Option 1: Helm
helm repo add strimzi https://strimzi.io/charts
helm install strimzi strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator \
  --namespace kafka \
  --create-namespace

# Option 2: Direct YAML install
kubectl create namespace kafka
kubectl apply -f https://strimzi.io/install/latest?namespace=kafka -n kafka

Verify the operator is running: