KCM – Kafka UI for Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Topics & ACLs

Try it in 2 minutes

Run the KCM UI locally with Docker Compose — no account needed.

≈ 2 min Docker Desktop / Engine Free local UI

1

Clone the repo with the Compose example

Pulls the ready-to-run stack.
git clone https://github.com/kcmhub/KCM.git
2

Enter the folder & create the network

Preps the shared Docker network.
cd KCM/00_kcm_with_docker_compose docker network create kcm-net
3

Start the stack

Boots the KCM UI and services.
docker compose up -d

Copy/paste the commands at once:

git clone https://github.com/kcmhub/KCM.git
cd KCM/00_kcm_with_docker_compose
docker network create kcm-net
docker compose up -d

Built for Kafka power users

Kafka Connect UI at scale

Stop debugging JSON configs by hand. Track connector changes, validate config and diagnose failures faster.

Connector & worker visibility
Config history & diffs
Operational troubleshooting

Schema Registry UI confidence

Understand schema evolution in minutes. Keep compatibility under control with clear history and context.

Schema version tracking
Compatibility insights
Safer production changes

Security & governance

Give teams the access they need — and nothing more. Perfect for multi-cluster and multi-tenant operations.

ACL management
Audit trails & accountability
Pro/Enterprise: RBAC & SSO

Why teams adopt KCM

Fewer “guesswork” incidents

Understand what changed, by whom, and when — across Kafka operations.

Audit logs for configs & actions
Versioned changes for key objects
Better postmortems, faster MTTR

One Kafka dashboard for daily operations

Stop juggling dashboards and scripts. KCM brings Kafka UI workflows into one coherent tool.

Topics & consumer groups
Connect + Schema Registry
Ready for production teams

See KCM in action

A quick tour of the views that matter most when you run Kafka in production.

KCM Leader Rebalancing — dry-run preview with broker weights, rack awareness and stretch-cluster support

Leader rebalancing — with dry-run

Reorder replicas to even out leader load. Broker weights, rack awareness and stretch-cluster (multi-DC) support included.

KCM Test Scenarios — automated produce/consume/assert execution with detailed results

Automated test scenarios ENTERPRISE

Produce, consume and assert on key/value/headers/offset/timestamp. CI-ready, YAML-importable, async execution with replay.

KCM Data Consumer — side-by-side diff between two consumed Kafka messages

Live tail, filter, replay & diff

Stream messages over WebSocket, filter by offset/timestamp/pattern, replay producers, compare two messages side by side.

KCM cluster overview — AWS MSK cluster running Apache Kafka 3.8 in Zookeeper mode

Apache Kafka · AWS MSK · Confluent

One UI for all your Kafka clusters — self-hosted, AWS MSK (IAM & SASL), Confluent Platform & Confluent Cloud.

Governance & access control

Built for regulated environments and multi-tenant platforms — KCM lets you describe your data, scope access by resource, and export every action to your SIEM.

Topic metadata & data classification

Tag every topic with sensitivity, criticality, retention policy and support tier — then filter and audit by label.

Custom labels & tags per topic
Sensitivity / criticality / retention metadata
Filter & report by label

Fine-grained RBAC & Role Groups

Grant least-privilege access per cluster, topic, connector, consumer group or schema subject — managed through reusable role groups.

Permissions per resource type
Role groups with members & inherited permissions
SSO (SAML2 / OIDC) & magic link login

Service accounts & API tokens

Issue scoped, revocable tokens for automation, CI/CD or kcmctl — without sharing user credentials.

Token generation, retrieval & revocation
Scoped to clusters & permissions
Ready for kcmctl & API workflows

Audit trail → SIEM

Every config change, ACL update, message produced or scenario run is captured with who/what/when — exportable to CSV or streamed to your SIEM.

Audit Kafka cluster, Connect & Topic operations
CSV export & SIEM streaming
Better postmortems, compliance-ready

Deploy in minutes

Community (free)

Perfect for local dev and evaluation.

1 Kafka cluster
Core features to get started
GitHub community support

Get Community

Pro (teams)

Multi-cluster, advanced governance & diagnostics.

Multi-cluster & multi-module licensing
Advanced access control & audit
Production workflows

See Pro Request a trial

Kubernetes-ready

Deploy behind your Ingress with optional Postgres/Redis and persistent volumes.

Helm chart (OCI)
Ingress paths
StorageClass support

Read docs

Watch KCM in Action

Want a guided walkthrough? Email us and we’ll schedule a 15-minute demo focused on your Kafka setup.

Book a demo Pricing

Kafka UI FAQ

What is a Kafka UI?

A Kafka UI is a web dashboard (Kafka GUI) that helps you manage Kafka resources like topics, consumer groups, ACLs, Kafka Connect, and Schema Registry without juggling scripts and multiple tools.

Is KCM an open source Kafka UI?

KCM provides a free Community edition (1 cluster) to evaluate locally and a Pro/Enterprise path for multi-cluster, governance, RBAC/SSO and production workflows.

Does KCM support Kafka Connect and Schema Registry?

Yes — KCM focuses strongly on Kafka Connect visibility (connectors/workers/config history) and Schema Registry (versions/compatibility context) to reduce production risk.

Can I deploy KCM on Kubernetes?

Yes — KCM is Kubernetes/Helm ready and can be deployed behind your Ingress with persistent storage and optional Postgres/Redis depending on your setup.

Documentation & Integration

Explore the docs to deploy KCM with Docker Compose or Helm, connect Kafka Connect and Schema Registry, enable security, and configure production-ready persistence.

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