When creating a local Kafka instance for kafka-python, is it a good idea using Kafka 2.8+ that don't need Zookeeper?

Question

In April 2021 Kafka released a version with early access to eliminating its dependency on Zookeeper. I've read many posts (mostly from 2021) saying that it was still not a good idea to use those versions on prod becasue they were too new. Every tutorial for kafka-python I've read starts with building a local Kafka instance and running Zookeeper for that. Are thos tutorials outdated when it comes to building the instance or is it still better to download older Kafka versions and continue using Zookeeper?

I have no code to show because it's more of a theoretical question.

Answer 1

Kafka clients newer than Kafka 0.9 have never needed to connect to Zookeeper. The brokers still require it, but that has nothing to do with Python.

Kafka 3.3.x announced Kraft mode as production ready, by the way.