When To Use xCluster Async Replication vs Setting Up Kafka

xCluster is a built-in replication feature supported at the storage layer. It enables asynchronous replication between two independent YugabyteDB clusters without incurring additional latency on writes.

This feature replicates transaction logs (WALs) in a timeline order of updates and provides the at-least-one semantic (explore additional features and limitations).

If you need to replicate specific tables across two regions, you should consider this method since it is built into YugabyteDB.

Apache Kafka is an extra component for your architecture that’s best suited to stream or replicate changes between YugabyteDB and third-party software. However, YugabyteDB supports change-data-capture (CDC) natively with the use of the Debezium Connector (which can be used for most use cases).

Additional content on xCluster and Apache Kafka

• xCluster documentation page
• Apache Kafka document page
• Yugabyte’s xCluster library

New Video on xCluster Async Replication

Upcoming Events and Training

Check out the upcoming YugabyteDB events, including all training sessions, conferences, and in-person and virtual events.

If You Have Questions About Distributed SQL

This blog series would not be possible without the support of fellow Yugabeings such as Denis Magda, Dorian Hoxha, Franck Pachot, and Frits Hoogland, to name a few. We also thank our incredible user community for not being afraid to ask questions.

So if you have questions, make sure to ask them on our YugabyteDB Slack channel, Forum, GitHub, or Stack Overflow. For more tips and tricks, check out our Distributed Tips and Tricks archive.

Next Steps

Ready to start exploring YugabyteDB features?

You have some great options: run the database locally on your laptop (Quick Start), deploy it to your favorite cloud provider (Multi-node Cluster Deployment), or sign up for a free cluster. It’s easy! Get started today!