When I first read that Kafka was a "distributed event streaming platform," I nodded, closed the tab, and went back to writing REST endpoints.
It took me a while to realize the problem wasn't Kafka. It was that every explanation started with what Kafka is and none of them started with why it exists. If you already think about systems the way REST teaches you to, most Kafka tutorials feel like they're answering a question you didn't ask.
This post is for engineers who've built REST APIs for years and want to understand Kafka the way it actually clicks — not the API, not the config, but the shift in what a system is supposed to be.
The short version:
REST is about asking. Kafka is about telling.
