--- title: Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly description: A conceptual exploration of where parallelism should live in messaging systems — broker-visible (partitions, consumers, TCP connections) vs client-local... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly | daily.dev og:description: A conceptual exploration of where parallelism should live in messaging systems — broker-visible (partitions, consumers, TCP connections) vs client-local... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/8sMGOToBn.png og:image:alt: Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly **[Jack Vanlightly](https://daily.dev/sources/jack-vanlightly)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A conceptual exploration of where parallelism should live in messaging systems — broker-visible (partitions, consumers, TCP connections) vs client-local (virtual threads, async tasks). Using Kafka Share Groups as context, the post introduces a simple formula for calculating required aggregate parallelism (rate × avg processing time) and argues that for highly parallel workloads, pushing parallelism to the client side is far more resource-efficient than scaling broker-managed units. It also notes the deprecation of the ParallelConsumer library and hints at the need for a new library combining client-side parallelism with Share Groups. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Scaling Java-Based Real-Time Systems: The Hidden Tradeoffs of Event-Driven Design](https://daily.dev/posts/scaling-java-based-real-time-systems-the-hidden-tradeoffs-of-event-driven-design-ef85inlwt) · InfoQ · 8 upvotes · 1 comments - [Kafka Queue Semantics Now GA with Share Consumer API](https://daily.dev/posts/kafka-queue-semantics-now-ga-with-share-consumer-api-aqzvx7ajg) · Confluent Blog · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Key Concepts of Kafka](https://daily.dev/posts/key-concepts-of-kafka-eokkrpzio) · System Design Codex · 25 upvotes · 0 comments - [Colocating Input Partitions with Kafka Streams When Consuming Multiple Topics: Sub-Topology Matters\!](https://daily.dev/posts/colocating-input-partitions-with-kafka-streams-when-consuming-multiple-topics-sub-topology-matters--xfvpfqrj3) · Expedia Group Tech · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#distributed-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/distributed-systems), [#apache-kafka](https://daily.dev/tags/apache-kafka) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn"},"datePublished":"2026-07-09T07:01:20.732Z","dateModified":"2026-07-09T07:03:54.107Z","description":"A conceptual exploration of where parallelism should live in messaging systems — broker-visible (partitions, consumers, TCP connections) vs client-local...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cc8d6807ae8131892771874a90ab0ba1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cc8d6807ae8131892771874a90ab0ba1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Jack Vanlightly","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Jack Vanlightly","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--lIrxyl_V--/f_auto,q_auto/v1781695531/logos/jack-vanlightly?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/jack-vanlightly"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/broker-visible-vs-client-local-parallelism-jack-vanlightly-8smgotobn","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"distributed-systems,apache-kafka","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jack Vanlightly","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/jack-vanlightly"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Broker-Visible vs Client-Local Parallelism — Jack Vanlightly"}]} ```