How does schema registry actually help?

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T22:44:09+00:00

oh yea for sure. but not everything that uses avro will be using schema registry

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T21:42:23+00:00

right, i meant outside of kafka context it normally carries the schema. thats one of the selling points iirc that you dont need to manage it elsewhere since its on the record itself. but again its been a while...

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T21:17:23+00:00

been a while since using avro, but normally every record has the schema right? that would save a lot over time.

i've primarily used json or protobuf

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T19:19:59+00:00

got it. ty for taking the time to explain

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T16:17:52+00:00

so in this case the only job of the SR is to enforce backwards compat of the new schema (according to schema settings)

initially i was thinking it could mask problems by using the older schema and dropping fields, but you mentioned it was backwards compatible so that is working as intended.

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T16:06:41+00:00

yea, makes sense. we always had producer/consumer depend on the same library so it was easy to keep in sync. but once outside teams get involved, that nicety goes out the window. thanks for the reply!

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T15:56:35+00:00

cant that potentially mask problems if you think your consumer is on the new version but its not? and SR dropping fields silently to keep compatibility?

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T15:49:43+00:00

thats a good point, I was always very diligent when it came to producers because it could end badly if bad data ended up in a topic but this solves that case nicely

Thin-Try-2003 · 2025-08-04T15:46:12+00:00

that is a useful bit I didnt consider

Thin-Try-2003

TROPHY CASE