Kafka Connect Licence

Kafka Connect
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Hi guys,
I have a question about the licence of the Kafka Connect: can I use it in production free of charge or should i purchase a licence instead?

I’m asking it because it appears here that the licence is not required

however, by checking here, I found that a confluent license key is needed.

I’m also using the following plugins from confluent hub:

  • jcustenborder/kafka-connect-redis
  • debezium/debezium-connector-sqlserver
  • mongodb/kafka-connect-mongodb
  • confluentinc/kafka-connect-jdbc

Many thanks in advance and any help will be very appreciated
Anton

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I wish I could provide a more straightforward answer, but the reality is that you have to consider at least three moving parts regarding licensing:

  1. Kafka Connect: This is the runtime part of the architecture and provides a way for connectors to execute. Kafka Connect is part of Apache Kafka, and therefore, it is available under the Apache License 2.0 license. So no charges or fees for it.

  2. Kafka Distribution: Apache Kafka is a piece of software made available over different distributions. A few examples include Confluent, Cloudera, Red Hat, IBM, among others. When you decide to use bits outside the Apache jurisdiction, that is, when you do not obtain the software from kafka.apache.org, you have to be mindful of the distribution’s licensing. Confluent has different distributions, each one with its license. If you, for example, decide to use enterprise distribution, you may need to worry about charges. I would chat with some Confluent folks such as @rmoff for more information about distributions.

  3. Connector: Each connector has its own licensing. Specifically:

  • jcustenborder/kafka-connect-redis :arrow_right: Apache License 2.0
  • debezium-connector-sqlserver :arrow_right: Apache License 2.0
  • mongodb/kafka-connect-mongodb :arrow_right: Apache License 2.0
  • confluentinc/kafka-connect-jdbc :arrow_right: Confluent Community License

Lastly, be mindful of where you’re getting the software from. This is particularly important if you’re using container images. Not all images are from the same author.

— @riferrei

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