Different Versions of Apache Kafka Updating from 0.7 Release 0.7 is incompatible with newer releases. Most important changes were made to the API and ZooKeeper to add replication. The update from 0.7 to later versions requires a special tool for relocation. This relocation can be done without downtime. Kafka Spark Streaming Tutorial Video: Updating from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1 0.8.1 is fully compatible with 0.8. The next version can be done one broker at a time by simply bringing it down, updating the code, and restarting it. Version Updating The updated version of Kafka i.e. 0.9.0.0 has got a lot of positive changes. The latest version of Kafka: Advantageous changes in 0.9.0.0 Java 1.6 is not supported for a long time. Scala 2.9 is also not supported for a long time. The server configuration is consequent. No more configuration parameters are present. Its replica refers to the time last updated Keyless messages will quit, hence security has increased. All logging messages will be lighter now The larger Ids are automatically allocated server IDs