Confluent, MQTT, and Apache Kafka Power Real-Time IoT Use Cases

This post introduces Waterstream, a Kafka-native MQTT broker that runs as a Kafka Streams application, allowing direct integration of MQTT devices with Kafka. It details how Waterstream stores MQTT state (subscriptions, QoS status, retained messages) in Kafka and enables bidirectional communication. The post also provides a comprehensive overview of various MQTT integration options with Kafka, including Kafka Connect connectors, Confluent MQTT Proxy, vendor-specific integrations, and the Kafka-native approach, discussing their respective pros, cons, and considerations for large-scale use cases.