Spring Boot | How to publish JSON messages on Apache Kafka

Last Updated : 15 Jul, 2025

Apache Kafka is a publish-subscribe messaging system. A messaging queue lets you send messages between processes, applications, and servers. In this article, we will see how to send JSON messages to Apache Kafka in a spring boot application. In order to learn how to create a spring boot project, refer to this article. The full-form of JSON is JavaScript Object Notation. JSON is a lightweight data format for data interchange which can be easily read and written by humans, easily parsed and generated by machines. Though it is derived from a subset of JavaScript, yet it is Language independent. It is a complete language-independent text format. The following steps can be followed in order to publish JSON messages to Apache Kafka:

Go to spring initializr and create a starter project with following dependencies:
- Spring Web
- Spring for Apache Kafka

Open the project in an IDE and sync the dependencies. In this article, we would be creating a student model where we would be posting the student details. Therefore, create a model class Student. Add data members and create constructor and create getters and setters. The following is the implementation of the student class:

Java

// Java program to implement a
// student class

// Creating a student class
public class Student {

    // Data members of the
    // student class
    int id;
    String firstName;
    String lastName;

    // Constructor of the student
    // class
    public Student(int id, String firstName,
                   String lastName)
    {
        this.id = id;
        this.firstName = firstName;
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }

    // Implementing the getters
    // and setters
    public int getId()
    {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(int id)
    {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getFirstName()
    {
        return firstName;
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName)
    {
        this.firstName = firstName;
    }

    public String getLastName()
    {
        return lastName;
    }

    public void setLastName(String lastName)
    {
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }
}

Now, create a new class Controller with the annotation @RestController. Create a GET API and initialize KafkaTemplate with parameter as string and model class object. The following is the implementation of the controller:

Java

// Java program to implement a
// controller

@RestController
@RequestMapping("gfg")
public class UserResource {

    @Autowired
    private KafkaTemplate<String, Student>
        kafkaTemplate;

    private static final String TOPIC
        = "StudentExample";

    @GetMapping("/publish/{id}/"
                + "{firstName}/{lastName}")

    public String post(
        @PathVariable("id") final int id,
        @PathVariable("firstName") final
            String firstName,
        @PathVariable("lastName") final
            String lastName)
    {

        kafkaTemplate.send(
            TOPIC,
            new Student(
                id, firstName,
                lastName));

        return "Published successfully";
    }
}

Create a class StudentConfig with the annotation @Configuration. In this class we will serialize the object of the model class.

Java

// Java program to serialize the
// object of the model class

@Configuration
public class StudentConfig {

    @Bean
    public ProducerFactory<String, Student>
    producerFactory()
    {
        // Create a map of a string
        // and object
        Map<String, Object> config
            = new HashMap<>();

        config.put(
            ProducerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG,
            "127.0.0.1:9092");

        config.put(
            ProducerConfig.KEY_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG,
            StringSerializer.class);

        config.put(
            ProducerConfig.VALUE_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG,
            JsonSerializer.class);

        return new DefaultKafkaProducerFactory<>(config);
    }

    @Bean
    public KafkaTemplate<String, Student>
    kafkaTemplate()
    {
        return new KafkaTemplate<>(
            producerFactory());
    }
}

Now, start zookeeper and Kafka server. We need to create a new topic with the name StudentExample. To do so, open a new command prompt window and change directory to the Kafka folder.
Now, create a new topic using the command given below:
For Mac and Linux: bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --zookeeper localhost:2181 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic topic_name For Windows: .\bin\windows\kafka-topics.bat --create --zookeeper localhost:2181 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic topic_name
Now to see the messages on the Kafka server in the real-time, use the command below:
For Mac and Linux: bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic topic_name --from-beginning For Windows: .\bin\windows\kafka-console-consumer.bat --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic topic_name --from-beginning
Run the application and call the API as:
localhost:8080/gfg/publish/{id}/{first name}/{last name}
Note: If a different port has been used, then replace the port with 8080.