Is it possible to read the same Kafka topic simultaneously by multiple consumers?

Yes, in Apache Kafka it is possible for multiple consumers to read the same topic simultaneously, but with some nuances.

Kafka divides a topic into partitions. Each partition can be read by only one consumer within a consumer group at a time. If multiple consumers belong to the same group, the partitions of the topic are distributed among them, ensuring parallel processing without message duplication.

However, if multiple consumers belong to different groups, each of them will receive all messages from the topic independently, meaning that reading the same topic by multiple consumers is possible and often used for different purposes (for example, different services processing the same data).

Thus:

• In one consumer group, partitions are distributed among consumers.
• Multiple consumer groups can read the same topic independently of each other.