What is the reason for Kafka's high performance compared to other messaging systems?

High Kafka performance is achieved through several key architectural decisions:

• Sequential disk writing: Kafka writes messages to log files sequentially, which is much faster than random access.
• Use of zero-copy transfer: when transferring data between disk and network, Kafka uses operating system mechanisms to minimize data copying in memory.
• Batch processing of messages: messages are processed and transmitted in batches, reducing overhead from network calls.
• No acknowledgments at the broker level for each message (depending on settings), which reduces latency.
• Distributed architecture with partitioning: load is distributed among brokers, allowing horizontal scaling.
• Client responsibility for offset management: consumers manage offsets themselves, simplifying the broker and reducing load.

All these factors together provide high throughput and low latency, making Kafka an efficient messaging system.