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Zilla Documentation

Zilla is a multi-protocol, edge and service proxy. It abstracts Apache Kafka® for non-native clients, such as browsers and IoT devices, by exposing Kafka topics via user-defined REST, Server-Sent Events (SSE), MQTT, or gRPC API entry points.

Getting Started

Zilla can validate API requests and message streams using your OpenAPI and AsyncAPI schemas. Zilla implements the OpenAPI and AsyncAPI schemas directly meaning there are little or no changes necessary to start serving you existing operations through Zilla. You can just drop in an existing OpenAPI/AsyncAPI specification and Zilla can seamlessly integrate with your current API management workflows and tooling.

You can see a working Petstore Demoopen in new window using OpenAPI/AsyncAPI schemas. Zilla can also define and proxy MQTT endpoints using a pair of AsyncAPI schemas. Check out the Taxi Demoopen in new window to see a Zilla MQTT proxy defined using AsyncAPI, which is deployed Liveopen in new window using Kubernetes.

You can explicitly define your APIs in a Zilla configuration by carefully orchestrating all of the different Bindings Zilla has to offer. You can see many of them on display by using the Kafka Proxy Quickstart or checking out the Zilla Examplesopen in new window repo.

Running Zilla via Docker

Run the latest Zilla release with the default empty configuration via docker.

docker run ghcr.io/aklivity/zilla:latest start -v

The output should display the Zilla config and started to know Zilla is ready for traffic.

// default Zilla config
name: default

// Zilla status
started

Specify your own zilla.yaml file.

docker run -v ./zilla.yaml:/etc/zilla/zilla.yaml ghcr.io/aklivity/zilla:latest start -v

Running Zilla via Helm

Go to the Zilla artifacthubopen in new window page to find out more on how to install Zilla using Helm.

helm install zilla oci://ghcr.io/aklivity/charts/zilla --namespace zilla --create-namespace --wait \
    --values values.yaml \
    --set-file zilla\\.yaml=zilla.yaml

Zilla specific configuration is in the zilla.yaml file which can be included in the helm install by adding --set-file zilla\\.yaml=zilla.yaml to your command.

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The zilla.yaml Config

The zilla.yaml config is declaratively configured to clearly define API mappings and endpoints that Zilla implements. This makes creating and managing different Zilla services easy.

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Zilla HTTP Proxy

The Zilla HTTP Kafka Proxy lets you configure application-centric REST APIs and SSE streams that unlock Kafka event-driven architectures.

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Zilla gRPC Proxy

The Zilla gRPC Kafka Proxy lets you implement gRPC service definitions from protobuf files to produce and consume messages via Kafka topics.

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Zilla MQTT Proxy

The Zilla MQTT Kafka Proxy manages MQTT Pub/Sub connections and messages on and off of Kafka.

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Zilla Plus

Everything in OSS plus commercial integrations and enterprise support. Partner-certified solutions for Confluent Cloud, Redpanda, and AWS MSK. Check out the Product Websiteopen in new window and find detailed instructions for each of our markeplace offerings below.

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