Quickstart

Wharf is a local-first desktop client for Kafka and Pulsar. This page gets you from install to browsing topics; the pages in the sidebar go deeper on each step.

Install Wharf

Wharf is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. On macOS, install it with Homebrew:

brew install wharf-dev

Connect a cluster

Add a broker connection with your existing credentials. Nothing is sent anywhere but the broker endpoint you configure. See Connecting a cluster for the supported authentication methods.

Turn on read-only mode

Recommended for a first connection to production: press ⌘⇧R to disable publish and admin actions. See Read-only mode.

Explore your topics

Browse topics, inspect messages, and filter by key or header — no CLI flags required.