Why is Kafka pull-based instead of push-based?

Question

Why is Kafka pull-based instead of push-based? I agree Kafka gives high throughput as I had experienced it, but I don\'t see how Kafka throughput would go down if it were to

Answer 1

Refer to the Kafka documentation which details the particular design decision: Push vs pull

Major points that were in favor of pull are:

1. Pull is better in dealing with diversified consumers (without a broker determining the data transfer rate for all);
2. Consumers can more effectively control the rate of their individual consumption;
3. Easier and more optimal batch processing implementation.

The drawback of a pull-based systems (consumers polling for data while there's no data available for them) is alleviated somewhat by a 'long poll' waiting mode until data arrives.