# travisjeffery/jocko

Kafka implemented in Golang with built-in coordination (No ZK dep, single binary install, Cloud Native)

Repository: https://github.com/travisjeffery/jocko
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/jocko
Homepage: https://twitter.com/travisjeffery
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: kafka, distributed-systems, queue, messaging, go, streaming
Last push: 2026-05-20T05:16:03+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 60/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 83, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3614, "days_push": 105, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5012, forks 371 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:04.638008+00:00)

## What it is
Jocko is a distributed commit log service implementing the Kafka protocol in Go, with built-in coordination via Serf discovery and Raft consensus so no ZooKeeper is needed. It ships as a single binary and aims to be protocol-compatible so existing Kafka clients like Sarama work with it.

## Use cases
- run a kafka-compatible message broker without zookeeper
- self-host a lightweight event streaming broker in go
- deploy a distributed commit log as a single binary
- use kafka clients like sarama against a simpler broker
- learn how kafka storage and consensus internals work
- spin up a small kafka cluster for development or testing

## When to choose
- you want kafka-style pub/sub or event streaming without operating zookeeper
- you prefer a single-binary, cloud-native deployment
- you're a go shop wanting a hackable broker implementation
- you need a lightweight kafka-compatible broker for dev/test environments

## When to avoid
- you need full kafka feature parity such as consumer groups, replication, and complete protocol coverage
- you run mission-critical production workloads requiring battle-tested durability
- you depend on kafka ecosystem tooling that needs advanced protocol versions
- you need guaranteed long-term maintenance - the project has had hiatus periods

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: experimental
- function: message-queue, streaming, rpc
- domain: microservices, big-data, developer-tools
- platform: go, self-hosted
- tags: kafka-compatible, commit-log, event-streaming, no-zookeeper, raft-consensus, serf-discovery, single-binary, messaging, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- travisjeffery/jocko (main) score 60

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:04.638008+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:17:33.165908+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/travisjeffery/jocko (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:04.638008+00:00, sha 698c03182c2f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.