Glossary

Throughput vs bandwidth (Kafka sizing)

Throughput is the rate of data actually processed or transferred under real workload conditions (messages/s or MB/s achieved). Bandwidth is the maximum capacity of a link or disk — the theoretical ceiling. In Kafka sizing, throughput is what your cluster delivers; bandwidth is what NICs and disks can sustain. The gap between them is headroom.

Formula: required_broker_bandwidth ≈ producer_throughput × replication_factor + consumer_egress (per broker path).

Last updated: March 2026