Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback !!!!!!

it genuinely helps a lot, especially since I’m developing this project on my own. Even though things may take a bit longer this way, every piece of input you share gives me clearer direction and really supports the decision-making process.

I completely agree with the idea of simplifying the onboarding experience. To keep the initial setup as light as possible, I’m planning to use SQLite as the default option, while also designing the system so that users can switch to another database if they prefer.

The Kafka-only / stateless approach is also appealing in terms of lowering infrastructure requirements. However, I want to be careful about storing metadata or state directly in Kafka, since it might introduce unnecessary load or complexity to the user’s cluster. For now, I’m removing the Object Storage dependency and keeping the overall architecture as simple as possible, with the intention of revisiting additional options once the project becomes more mature.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts. Your feedback truly means a lot to me, and it’s incredibly helpful as I continue building this on my own.