---
title: "Deploy Kafka UI"
description: "Kafbat UI — Open-source web UI to monitor and manage Apache Kafka clusters"
category: "Queues"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/kafka-ui
---

# Deploy Kafka UI

Kafbat UI — Open-source web UI to monitor and manage Apache Kafka clusters

**[Deploy Kafka UI on Railway](https://railway.com/template/kafka-ui)**

- **Creator:** codestorm
- **Category:** Queues

## Template content

### kafbat https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/kafka/site/logos/originals/png/ICON%20-%20White%20on%20Transparent.png

- **Image:** ghcr.io/kafbat/kafka-ui:latest
- **Health check:** /actuator/health
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host Kafka UI on Railway

**Kafbat UI** is a free, open-source, versatile, fast and lightweight web UI for managing Apache Kafka® clusters. It lets you monitor brokers, topics, partitions, consumer groups, and messages through a clean browser dashboard — without needing CLI tools or complex setup.

![Kafka UI](https://opengraph.githubassets.com/027231e34679f13d043884e2d69bd69e052e500e3bf7b5b03c72101eda21b724/kafbat/kafka-ui)

## About Hosting Kafka UI

Hosting Kafka UI on Railway is straightforward. This template deploys the official **Kafbat UI** image (`ghcr.io/kafbat/kafka-ui:latest`) with basic authentication enabled by default. A persistent volume is mounted at `/etc/kafkaui` so that any cluster configuration you create via the built-in Configuration Wizard (and uploaded certificates) survives restarts. No custom start command is required. After deploy, open the public URL, log in with the default credentials, and connect your Kafka cluster in a few clicks. Ideal for development, staging, or lightweight production observability.

![Kafka UI](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kafbat/kafka-ui/images/overview.gif)

**Default Credentials**
- Username: `kafka`
- Password: Auto-generated 16-character secret (visible in the Variables tab after successful deploy)

## Common Use Cases

- Quickly inspect topics, partitions, and consumer lag during development
- Debug message payloads and troubleshoot consumer groups in staging
- Provide a simple browser-based control panel for internal Kafka clusters
- Monitor multiple Kafka clusters from a single lightweight UI

## Dependencies for Kafka UI Hosting

- An existing Apache Kafka cluster (KRaft or ZooKeeper-based)
- Optional: Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, or ksqlDB if you want full integration

### Deployment Dependencies

- Kafbat UI (official image): https://github.com/kafbat/kafka-ui
- Documentation: https://ui.docs.kafbat.io/
- Docker image: https://github.com/kafbat/kafka-ui/pkgs/container/kafka-ui
- Railway Templates: https://docs.railway.com/templates

### Implementation Details

```env
SERVER_PORT="8080"
DYNAMIC_CONFIG_ENABLED="true"
SPRING_SECURITY_USER_NAME="kafka"
SPRING_SECURITY_USER_PASSWORD="${{secret(16)}}"
```

- Port: `8080`
- Healthcheck: `/actuator/health`
- Volume: `/etc/kafkaui` (persists dynamic config & uploads)
- Start Command: none (uses image default)

**Why choose this template over alternatives?**

| Feature                              | This Template (Kafbat UI) | Other Kafka UIs / Manual Setup |
|--------------------------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------------|
| Official maintained image (kafbat)   | ✅                        | ❌ Often outdated forks        |
| Built-in Configuration Wizard        | ✅                        | ❌ Usually requires env vars   |
| Basic Auth enabled out of the box    | ✅                        | ❌ Extra setup needed          |
| Persistent config volume ready       | ✅                        | ❌ Easy to lose settings       |
| Auto-generated secure password       | ✅                        | ❌ Hardcoded or missing        |
| Zero custom start command            | ✅                        | ❌ Often needs workarounds     |
| Lightweight & fast                   | ✅                        | ❌ Some UIs are heavier        |

## Why Deploy Kafka UI on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.

By deploying Kafka UI on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.

## Similar templates

- [smoothmq](https://railway.com/deploy/AJv-64) — A drop-in replacement for AWS SQS
- [Hatchet Lite](https://railway.com/deploy/hatchet-lite) — Hatchet Lite with postgres
- [Maildev](https://railway.com/deploy/maildev) — Ephemeral SMTP server for development purposes.

Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/kafka-ui