# The Apache Kafka Consumer API

**URL:** <https://forum.confluent.io/t/the-apache-kafka-consumer-api/106>\
**Category:** Clients\
**Created:** [16 November 2020 14:48 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/the-apache-kafka-consumer-api/106 "2020-11-16T14:48:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rmoff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/rmoff/32/3_2.png) [@rmoff](https://forum.confluent.io/u/rmoff)\
**Post date:** [16 November 2020 14:48 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/the-apache-kafka-consumer-api/106/1 "2020-11-16T14:48:08Z")

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The Consumer API allows applications to read streams of data from topics in the Kafka cluster.

Applications can consume data independently. Data is not deleted once it has been read.

Applications can scale horizontally and consume data in parallel.

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/confluentcommunity/original/1X/a27ac02d3bafa302214764d5aa50bb7092c4409f.png)

🔗 [Read more about the Consumer API](https://docs.confluent.io/current/clients/consumer.html)

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**Author:** ![rmoff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/rmoff/32/3_2.png) [@rmoff](https://forum.confluent.io/u/rmoff)\
**Post date:** [25 February 2021 09:02 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/the-apache-kafka-consumer-api/106/2 "2021-02-25T09:02:21Z")

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A post was split to a new topic: [How to check lags for each partition of topics that a consumer group has subscribed to?](https://forum.confluent.io/t/how-to-check-lags-for-each-partition-of-topics-that-a-consumer-group-has-subscribed-to/1025)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rmoff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.confluent.io/rmoff/32/3_2.png) [@rmoff](https://forum.confluent.io/u/rmoff)\
**Post date:** [25 February 2021 09:02 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/the-apache-kafka-consumer-api/106/3 "2021-02-25T09:02:38Z")

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