Easy Ways to Generate Test Data in Kafka | Confluent

This post introduces the Kafka Connect Datagen Connector as a method for generating realistic test data for Kafka topics. It demonstrates how to use the Confluent CLI to start Confluent Platform locally and then configure and deploy the Datagen Connector to produce messages with complex data types, randomized data, and custom schemas. The post also shows how to use the `ksql-datagen` command-line tool for generating data directly to Kafka topics without a connector. It highlights the flexibility of defining custom Avro schemas and configuring output formats like JSON and Avro.