AKHQ Kafka GUI - Pre-Configured

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## A Working Kafka Console in Minutes

AKHQ is the popular open source GUI for Apache Kafka, with an active open source contributor community. This AMI ships AKHQ 0.27.1 with a single node Apache Kafka 4.3.1 broker already installed, configured and seeded, so the console has a real cluster to manage the moment the instance boots. Browse topics and partitions, tail and search live messages, monitor consumer groups and lag, inspect broker and topic configuration, and manage ACLs from one web console.

## Who This Is For

• Platform and streaming teams who need a shared web console over Kafka without hand rolling a deployment
• Developers debugging producers and consumers who want to read the actual bytes on a topic and see where a consumer group is stuck
• Operations teams watching consumer lag and broker health
• Evaluators who want a working Kafka environment to explore before committing to a managed cluster

## Application Stack

• AKHQ 0.27.1 - Micronaut web console running on Eclipse Temurin 25 JRE
• Apache Kafka 4.3.1 - single node broker and controller in KRaft mode, no ZooKeeper
• nginx - reverse proxy on port 80, forwarding WebSocket and SSE for live message tailing
• AKHQ and the broker bind to loopback; nginx is the only external surface

## Secure By Default

Upstream AKHQ ships with security disabled and anonymous full access. This image does not:

• Micronaut security is enabled; the default group is set to no-roles so nothing is served to unauthenticated visitors
• A single administrator account is defined with the password stored only as a SHA-256 hash
• Every instance generates its own administrator password and its own 256 bit JWT signing secret on first boot
• The plaintext password is written to a root only file, so no shared or default credential exists in the AMI

## Ready To Explore On First Boot

First boot formats fresh KRaft storage and seeds demonstration topics with real JSON events, plus a consumer group with committed offsets and non zero lag. The topics, messages and consumer views show genuine data immediately. Delete the demonstration topics whenever you are ready to point AKHQ at your own workloads.

## Getting Started

1. Launch the AMI on an m5.large instance or larger

2. SSH into the instance and read the generated administrator password from the root only credentials file

3. Open your browser to the instance public address on port 80

4. Sign in as administrator and open the cloudimg cluster

5. Browse the seeded topics, tail live messages, and inspect the demonstration consumer group and its lag

For a detailed walkthrough, see the user guide linked in the Additional Resources section.

## Recommended Instance Sizing

• Recommended: m5.large (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM) - comfortable for the two JVMs plus nginx
• Storage: OS disk plus two dedicated gp3 volumes, 30 GiB for Kafka data and 20 GiB for the application tier, each independently resizable
• Networking: open ports 80 and 443 in your security group for browser access; Kafka itself is loopback only

## Use Case: Debugging A Stuck Consumer

An engineer is paged because orders are not being processed. They open AKHQ, find the orders topic, and see the consumer group lag climbing on one partition. They tail the live messages on that partition, spot a malformed payload, and confirm the committed offset has not advanced past it. Diagnosis takes minutes rather than an afternoon of command line tooling.

## 24/7 cloudimg Support

Every deployment is backed by cloudimg engineers available around the clock via email and live chat. Support covers:

• Initial deployment and instance sizing guidance
• Connecting AKHQ to an external or managed Kafka cluster in place of the bundled broker
• AKHQ authentication configuration, including LDAP and OIDC
• TLS termination with Let's Encrypt or your own certificates
• Apache Kafka broker configuration, retention and troubleshooting
• AKHQ and Kafka version upgrades

Critical issues receive a one hour average response time.

## Evaluation

This AMI uses standard AWS pay as you go infrastructure billing. Launch an instance to evaluate AKHQ against the bundled broker or your own cluster, and terminate at any time with no long term commitment.

AKHQ and Apache Kafka are trademarks of their respective owners. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.