DISKLESS KAFKA: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BROKERS STOP OWNING THE DATA?

Summary from the TLDR Data newsletter

Diskless Kafka keeps the Kafka API while moving durable payload storage from broker-owned logs to object storage and strongly consistent metadata. The tradeoff is not just cheaper retention: batching, offset assignment, recovery, compaction, latency, and feature support all change, making diskless topics a per-workload storage choice rather than a universal Kafka replacement.