Apache Kafka is a great tool for building event-driven applications. In this post, we will connect Kafka with Laravel using a real e-commerce example: processing an order with payment and stock update.

What is Kafka ?

Apache Kafka is a distributed messaging platform, mainly used for:

  • Real-time event processing
  • Microservice Integration
  • Scalable data collection and analysis

Initial Setup

To use Kafka with Laravel:

  • Install the rdkafka PHP extension.
  • Install the kafka client: 
RUN pecl install rdkafka \
    && docker-php-ext-enable rdkafka
  • Install composer package:

composer require edenhill/php-rdkafka

Producer: Sending Order To Kafka 

// app/Kafka/KafkaProducer.php
namespace App\Kafka;

use RdKafka\Producer;

class KafkaProducer
{
    public function send(string $topicName, array $data): void
    {
        $conf = new \RdKafka\Conf();
        $producer = new Producer($conf);
        $topic = $producer->newTopic($topicName);

        $topic->produce(RD_KAFKA_PARTITION_UA, 0, json_encode($data));
        $producer->flush(1000);
    }
}
public function placeOrder(Request $request, KafkaProducer $producer)
{
    $orderData = [
        'order_id' => 123,
        'user_id' => 1,
        'product_id' => 45,
        'quantity' => 2,
        'amount' => 150.00
    ];

    $producer->send('order-events', $orderData);

    return response()->json(['status' => 'Order sent for processing']);
}

Consumer

Let's create a Kafka consumer that:

// app/Kafka/KafkaConsumer.php
namespace App\Kafka;

use RdKafka\Consumer;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;

class KafkaConsumer
{
    public function consume(string $topicName)
    {
        $conf = new \RdKafka\Conf();
        $conf->set('group.id', 'order-processing');

        $consumer = new Consumer($conf);
        $consumer->addBrokers('localhost:9092');

        $topic = $consumer->newTopic($topicName);
        $topic->consumeStart(0, RD_KAFKA_OFFSET_BEGINNING);

        while (true) {
            $message = $topic->consume(0, 1000);
            if ($message && $message->payload) {
                $order = json_decode($message->payload, true);

                Log::info('Processing order', $order);

                $paymentSuccess = $this->processPayment($order);

                if ($paymentSuccess) {
                    $this->updateStock($order['product_id'], $order['quantity']);
                    Log::info("Order {$order['order_id']} paid and stock updated");
                } else {
                    Log::warning("Payment failed for order {$order['order_id']}");
                }
            }
        }
    }

    protected function processPayment(array $order): bool
    {
        // Simulate payment logic
        return rand(0, 1) === 1;
    }

    protected function updateStock(int $productId, int $quantity): void
    {
        // Update your database here
        Log::info("Reducing stock of product {$productId} by {$quantity}");
    }
}

Create artisan command to run consumer

php artisan make:command KafkaProcessOrders

// app/Console/Commands/KafkaProcessOrders.php
public function handle()
{
    app(\App\Kafka\KafkaConsumer::class)->consume('order-events');
}

Run it with:

php artisan kafka:process-orders

Conclusion
Using Laravel with Kafka is a powerful way to build modern, event-driven applications. Instead of doing everything inside one controller, you can send events to Kafka and let different consumers handle the work — like processing payments, updating stock, or sending emails.

This approach brings many benefits:

  • ✅ Better performance (non-blocking)

  • ✅ Easier to scale

  • ✅ Cleaner and more organized code

Even if your system is small today, using this architecture makes it ready to grow.

Start simple — like in this example — and improve step by step.